


Mr and Mrs Jones

by FebruarySong



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3463706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FebruarySong/pseuds/FebruarySong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing Daryl Dixon wants to do is go undercover at a fancy gala, let alone with a rookie partner. But when their simple recon mission turns into something a little more dangerous, secret agents Dixon and Greene will have to work together to make it out alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi, hello. this fic is my illegitimate child after an affair with a fandom i never imagined i would get into. it's pretty much 100% self-indulgent, rumpusy fun. :)

“No,” he growls, using the bulk of his body and a dark glower to communicate his displeasure instead of an overabundance of words. “No way I’m goin’ undercover, let alone with a damn rookie.”

“Yes, you are,” Rick says patiently, earnestly, then raises a placating hand to forestall Daryl’s protest. “You know our resources are stretched thin with the Terminus incident last week. Look, I know undercover ops aren’t really your thing, but we’re runnin’ outta options here.”

Daryl tries another tack. “She ain’t ready. She’s _green_.” He spits it out like a bad taste, but he doesn’t realize how much that word would backfire on him until Rick replies.

“She’s a legacy. Hershel Greene was one of our best, even after he lost his leg.”

“She still ain’t ready,” he mutters through the dark fringe of his hair, knowing he’s lost.

“You haven’t even heard the mission yet,” Rick says, knowing he’s won.

“Save it for the briefing,” Daryl growls.

“Don’t have to.” Rick nods to the door just as it opens. “Briefing’s now. Mornin’ Beth, Carol.”

“Mornin’ Sheriff,” Carol says as the two women enter. She has that calm smile of hers, like everything is fine and the CIA isn’t sending Daryl Dixon undercover of all places. “Mornin’, Pookie.”

“Mornin’,” he says, dipping his head in greeting despite his foul mood, because his days of lashing out against Carol are long behind him.

“Pookie?” a new voice asks, and he finally turns his attention to the waif of a blonde in the room. She’s looking back and forth between them, teeth bared in what could pass as a nervous smile. “Where’d that come from?”

“It’s just a nickname,” Carol says, then looks to Rick. “Wanna get started? I brought the files like you asked.”

“Thanks, let’s all take a seat.”

Daryl finds himself straddling one of the folding chairs backwards, taking up as much space as possible so that neither Rick nor Carol can sit too close to him at the small table. Beth is opposite him, huge eyes trained on Rick and maybe avoiding Daryl a little too carefully.

He’s seen her before, of course – the smallest of the new graduates, always singing on the shooting ranges and putting braids in her honeywheat curls. Carol is pretty good at replacing hope with realism in her trainees, but after a year in Carol’s training program, here is Beth Greene trying and failing to shutter the glow of her excitement.

A folder landing on the table in front of him snaps him back to the present. He grudgingly opens it and tunes into Rick’s voice as he scans its contents.

“Your target goes by the Governor,” Rick begins. “We barely have a decent photo to ID him, let alone his real name. We’ve been gettin’ reports on him for months, mostly petty crime at first, but lately it’s been gettin’ worse. Looks like he’s been traffickin’ anything that will sell – drugs, weapons, sex. We can’t pin anything to him, though, which is where y’all come in.”

Daryl flips past the grainy images of a dark-haired man to read a list of his suspected offenses. He’s heard of the Governor before, but the charges here are new. Rick wasn’t kidding; the Governor has bought and sold all sorts of illegal things, including girls as young as fourteen.

“You’re both on the guestlist for a weapons expo at the Grande Woodbury Hotel tomorrow,” Rick continues. “Last intel we got on the Governor says he’ll be there, probably lookin’ to make some new business deals.”

“So we gonna waltz up to him and ask to see his tax records?” Daryl snaps, surprising himself. He trusts Ricks as his commanding officer, trusts Carol’s training in Beth, trusts that they won’t hand him a file unless it’s a sound plan. But seeing the atrocities that the Governor is capable of – there’s no way in hell the girl across the table is ready for whatever is at the Woodbury.

“No,” Rick says evenly, used to Daryl’s snarls. “You’ll be going in as Mr. and Mrs. Jones.”

It takes a minute for the words to register, and Beth goes very still just as Daryl reels back with an incredulous, “aw, _hell_.”

“To be fair, this op was designed for Maggie and Glenn,” Carol explains.

“Obviously since Glenn broke two ribs yesterday, they’ve been benched,” Rick says. “But we can’t let this opportunity pass. You’ll find your cover identities on page twelve of your dossier—”

“We can’t be _married_ ,” Daryl interrupts, not so much snarling anymore as spitting venom. “People gon’ think she’s my kid!”

“Plenty of men marry younger women,” Carol says.

He glances across at Beth and she looks pissed, glaring bitter poison at him but quiet in the presence of their superiors. Her self-control gives him pause for a second, just long enough for Rick to decide he’s had enough insubordination for one day.

“We have _one_ good shot at this,” he says firmly. “This is the first time we’ve known where the Governor will be before he’s there, and we might not get another chance. Now get your head screwed on straight before you compromise your own op.”

“It’s mostly just a recon mission, Daryl,” Carol says.

He slumps back, and retracts his claws.

“There’s a formal gala tonight as a general welcome to the expo attendees. You’ll find the specifics in your folders.” Rick looks between Daryl and Beth, as if assessing. “Both of you go get cleaned up. Car’ll be ready at seven.”

Daryl knows well enough that _getting cleaned up_ means hair products and an uncomfortable suit and shoes that pinch, but he figures he has time to get down to the shooting range and blow off some steam. Rick was right earlier – he needs to be focused and clear-headed to get through this. It looks like Beth is about to speak to him, but he snatches his folder off the table and ducks out the door. They can talk through their mission in the car.

Several hours and a couple hundred crossbow bolt rounds later, and sure enough Daryl’s hair is combed back in the way he hates and he thinks maybe his tie is choking him. He had been relieved to pack more casual clothes for the rest of the weekend, but damn if formal parties didn’t call for the most uncomfortable getups.

_Ain’t my baby brother a dandy_ , his brother’s voice mocks in his head as he put on cufflinks. _A regular beauty queen._

A knock interrupts before Merle’s ghost can continue. Daryl opens the door to frame a very different Beth Greene in the hall outside, and the breath catches in his chest despite himself. She is wearing a long, flowing gown in shimmery gold with her hair gathered loosely at her nape. The effect is mesmerizing, and Daryl thinks _aw, hell_ again.

He’s about to shoot off some gruff wisecrack to cover his moment of dumbstruck staring, until he realizes that she’s also staring at him – except it’s at the top of his head, and she looks more disgusted than dumbstruck.

“What?” he snaps.

“Why is your hair like that?” she asks without breaking eye contact with it.

“The stylist did it,” he answers, suddenly defensive.

She reaches toward him and he flinches a step back, all instinct. “Sorry,” she says, snatching her hand away. “It’s just that, you should wear it like you always do.”

He belatedly realizes that she only meant to muss his hair into his eyes, so he drags a hand through it and shakes it out. “Hated it all done up, anyway. Why do you care?”

“You look ridiculous with it combed back,” she smiles innocently at him. “Can’t have my husband shamin’ me in front of the other ladies. Here’s your ring, by the way.” She pulls a plain tungsten band off her thumb and extends it to him. As he slides it onto his ring finger, he notices the sparkling diamond on her own hand.

“I do,” he says sarcastically.

“Til death do us part,” she says, and just like that the moment sours. Beth seems to sense the misstep and hurries to move past it. “I already sent my bags down to the car. Heard they’re givin’ us a nice one.”

Daryl hefts his own weekend bag over his shoulder. It’s disturbingly light, but the instructions were clear: no crossbow, no weapons of any kind unless they can get through the rigorous security checks. Which is exactly why Daryl hates undercover ops. “Let’s go. S’gonna take an hour to drive to the Woodbury without gettin’ stuck in traffic.”

The walk from the residential section of the CIA compound down to the subterranean parking garage is mostly silent except for the click of Beth’s high heels. His hands are full when they get there, so she steps past him and signs for the car. As a driver pulls it around, Daryl sees that it’s a late-model Hummer and he mentally thanks Rick for not putting them into some prissy eco-fuel matchbox.

The valet hands him the keys in exchange for his bag and stows it behind the backseat as Beth sweeps her long skirt into the passenger side. Huffing one more time in resignation, Daryl gets in behind the wheel and puts the car in drive.

They spend the drive fine-tuning their cover identities. Devon and Blaire Jones have been married for a little less than a year; he owns a private security company overseas, she comes from old money. It’s patently made for Maggie’s sparkling command of a room and Glenn’s knack for always landing on his feet. But with the Dream Team out of commission after a run-in with a Terminus terror cell yesterday, the CIA is stuck with Team B – or more like Team Z, since they aren’t really a team at all.

If Beth is bothered by his constant glower and gruff answers, she doesn’t let on. She keeps up a steady stream of dialogue as he drives, mostly about their cover backstory and some about the logistics of the upcoming evening. By the time they pull up to the front gate of their destination, Daryl actually feels a little more relaxed about the whole thing. She’s obviously done her research.

The Grande Woodbury Hotel is enormous. It’s tucked into the countryside a couple miles out of Atlanta, and it’s more like a small town than a hotel. Just the drive up to the front entrance takes a few moments, and Daryl spends the time putting on his cover identity like an overcoat. Beth is silent, possibly doing the same.

They pull up to the front of the hotel and Daryl gets out, tossing the keys to the waiting valet with a curt “Make sure our luggage gets to our room.” He walks around the car to open the passenger door, and as Beth takes his hand and unfolds from the car like a butterfly, his breath does that thing again. She’s transformed for a second time – not physically like before, but in essence. It’s hampered a little by nerves, but she has an effortless power, like she could bring a man to his knees with a bat of her long lashes.

_Damn, girl, where did that come from?_ he thinks.

“Shall we?” she asks, smiling up at him.

“What?” he grunts just as he realizes they are standing arm-in-arm on the steps outside the hotel and the valet is already driving the car away.

She rolls her eyes, somehow the perfect picture of fond flirtiness. “Shall we go in, Mr. Jones?”

He responds by heading up toward the door, and together they enter the Grande Woodbury Hotel.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all! i am so blown away and grateful for the kind reception from the bethyl fandom. thank you so much for welcoming me with open arms -- i was honestly nervous about entering a new fandom and y'all have been incredible.

Daryl feels his tension level skyrocket as they step into the hotel lobby. Beyond a set of huge oak doors on the left, they can hear what must be the party in full swing, but here in the front entrance two security guards disguised as footmen are descending on them with false smiles.

"Welcome to the Grande Woodbury Hotel," one says. "Are you attending the opening gala this evening?"

Out of habit, Daryl calculates that if he can grab the gun he just spotted under the footman's jacket quick enough, he could take out the sharpshooter hidden on the balcony and get out. He pushes the thought away; Beth isn't dressed for an escape to the woods, and they've hardly started their mission.

"Yes," she is replying sweetly. "Actually, we're here for the whole expo. Devon and Blaire Jones."

"If you'll just step this way." The footman ushers them to the front desk, his counterpart lurking behind. "I'm sure you understand that we have strict security policies here at the Woodbury, so you won't mind allowing my colleague to screen you while I sort out your reservation?"

Daryl tenses, preparing for a pat-down. Beth's hand on his arm tightens, but he can't tell if it's meant as a comfort or a warning.

"Of course not," she says. "But I hope it won't take long, because I can't wait to get in there." It sounds like a speech is starting inside the ballroom – there is applause as if to welcome a speaker.

It turns out that they aren't patted down, just sent through a full body scanner while the second footman rifles through Beth's silvery clutch. Daryl knows their luggage will get a similar treatment before it's sent to their room.

"Alright, Mr. and Mrs. Jones," the first footman says. "Here are your room keys and day passes for the rest of the weekend. These will give you access to the guest areas of the hotel, as well as the sales room and shooting ranges during conference hours. Your complimentary welcome packages including all the literature for the event have already been delivered upstairs. Is there anything else I can assist you with?"

"No," Daryl says, figuring it would look odd if Beth did all the talking.

"Thank you." She smiles as a dismissal of the footman, taking Daryl's arm again and steering them toward the double doors.

Another footman opens the door for them and they step into the ballroom. It's huge and lavishly appointed with vaulted ceilings and opulent décor. There must be close to four hundred people inside, all listening attentively to a speaker standing at a low balcony on the far side of the room. Daryl is too busy assessing the area for threats and quick exits, but Beth zeroes in on the man.

"It's him," she says quietly, "and it looks like this is his party. I thought he was just a guest?"

Daryl doesn't reply and turns his attention to the speaker. Sure enough, it's their mark, thanking everyone for coming. He's too far away for Daryl to get a good read on him beyond ID'ing his face, so he goes back to scanning his surroundings. There are probably close to a dozen plainclothes security guards posing as guests just in the immediate vicinity.

He lets Beth tug him deeper into the room, presumably to get closer to the Governor. Having assessed the crowd as thoroughly as possible, Daryl tunes in to what their mark is saying.

"…hope you'll all enjoy your stay at my humble abode." This draws indulgent laughs at the obvious disparity between his words and their extravagant surroundings, but Daryl can't bring himself to act the part. The CIA hadn't been able to get much intel on the Grande Woodbury's history, but now it is becoming clear that it belongs to the Governor, and this op just got a  _lot_ more dangerous.

The Governor's speech concludes without any other revelations, and he toasts the evening and opens the dancefloor as his closing. It's difficult to unobtrusively track where he goes without being obvious about it, but Daryl tilts his body away and follows him with his eyes instead. The Governor steps down to the main level of the ballroom and joins a knot of people in conversation.

Strains of violin music pierce the air as the four piece band begins to warm up for their set. Beth turns to him, eyes wide with resolution.

"Dance with me," she says.

"No," is his immediate reaction. "I don't dance."

She adjusts his tie with a coquettish smile, the very picture of a wife about to get her way. "Yes you do. It's one of the fundamental courses in training and you wouldn't be cleared for undercover work without it." She keeps her voice low, mindful of being overheard. "I need to get our mark's attention, and you need to loosen up. So dance with me."

The band has started playing in earnest by now and quite a few other couples are already on the dancefloor. Daryl thinks back on his days in training, how Carol had to coach him after hours so he could pass the ballroom class.

"Dancin' ain't the way to loosen me up," he grumbles, but guides her to the dancefloor.

Other couples have started to step out, too, and the floor is filling up. Beth is a featherweight in his arms as he puts a hand to the small of her back. The music starts and Daryl pauses, trying not to show that he's counting the steps in his head. She gives him this look and then the tiniest of nods on the downbeat, and he leads her into the first steps of the dance.

She is fluid and effortless and everything that he is not. He can feel her supple strength under his hand and he knows that he will never be able to match the easy way she glides through the footwork. But then he realizes that her attention is focussed on their mark, while all he can do is think  _quick quick slow_.

"You sure this is a good idea?" he growls in her ear, hoping that it looks sensual instead of irritated. "I ain't the best at this, in case you haven't noticed."

"Stop whinin'," she giggles as if his breath on her neck tickles. "You're doin' fine. Just get us a little closer to the Governor, will you?"

Despite himself, he can't help but be impressed with her composure. He had been so sure that his age and surliness would intimidate her, but this little piece of hellfire has been full of surprises. It takes a lot more concentration than he would care to admit, but he slowly guides them to the edge of the dancefloor and closer to where the Governor stands talking with a knot of people.

"The hell are you gettin' at anyway?" Daryl says.

"How're we gonna get any intel on our mark if we don't talk to him?" she replies sweetly, all sugar and spice.

" _Hell_  no," he snaps and immediately changes direction. "That ain't the way we're doin' this op. We go at him sideways, not head-on."

She hides her exasperation well, with just a quick flash of it in her eyes. "That's a dumbass way to get to know somebody. And are you gonna keep doing a boxstep over and over or are you actually gonna  _dance_  with me?"

He responds by twirling her once, twice, and then pulls her back into his arms a little more roughly than is strictly necessary. "It ain't a dumbass way, it's protocol."

"Fine," she says, maybe a little breathless but still eclipsing him in every way. "Then let's sneak out and take a look around while everybody is busy in here. Sideways is only gonna get us so far."

"What do you have in mind?" he asks warily.

"I'll step out to powder my nose while you get us drinks," she says, and nods to a side door opposite where they came in. "Meet me outside there in ten minutes."

The song is ending, and even though Daryl really isn't sure if he likes this plan, she's tugging him off the dancefloor. He tries to get a word in edgewise, but she's already walking away from him in those impossibly tall high heels.

"Get me a peach martini, won't you babe?" she tosses airily over her shoulder, loudly enough for those around to hear.

"I ain't gettin' you no fancy mixed drink," he mutters at her back as she disappears into the crowd. Now that she's gone he feels a little unsteady, and he realizes just how much he's been relying on her so far. Heading toward the bar, he gives himself a disgusted grunt. He's a shit undercover agent.

He orders two fingers of whisky from the bartender and downs it in one long gulp. Then he remembers that he's technically supposed to be getting drinks for them both, and orders another round for two. This time he takes both drinks and heads back into the density of the crowd, acting like a lost husband.

If there's one thing he  _is_  good at, it's disappearing in plain sight. He's got a knack for sensing when people aren't looking, and he uses it to his full advantage as he meanders to the side door. He pauses in front of it, scanning the crowd as if he's looking for his wife but actually checking that security is occupied elsewhere. And just when he knows that no one's eyes are on him, he casually opens the door and steps through.

It opens to wide hallway lined with handpainted portraits, and it's much quieter out here now that he's shut the door behind him. Right on cue, Beth turns the corner to his left.

"Oh, thanks," she says, taking one of the tumblers from his hand. Her look sours as she takes a sip. "This is disgusting."

"Then don't drink it," he says, setting his untouched glass next to an ornate vase on a small display table. She does the same with another little grimace, then reaches down to pull off her shoes.

"They're noisy on the floor tiles," she explains at his confused look, looping one arm through his with the heels dangling from her pinky finger on the other hand. "C'mon. I think there are offices this way."

He still kinda thinks this is a bad idea, but she's also right - in a party that big, there's only so much that schmoozing and small-talk will do. So he goes with her down the hall, her bare feet padding noiselessly next to him.

They pass a couple of doors with plaques that say pretty innocuous things like  _water closet_  and  _storage_  until they reach one that says  _manager._  Daryl tries the knob.

"Locked," he says, more than ready to get out of there.

She brushes past him with a huff, reaching up for her hair to produce two pins delicately shaped like lockpicks. He watches her, stunned, as she crouches to get on a level with the knob and quickly picks it. Then she stands and gives him a brilliant smile, tucking the pins back into her updo.

"Unlocked," she says, and wafts through the door.

He follows, senses prickling, and locks the door behind him. It is a beautiful, lush office lined with wood panels that probably conceal hidden compartments, and dominated by a huge inset bookshelf on one wall. Beth is already rifling through a drawer in the oversized mahogany desk, so Daryl turns his attention to checking for latches or mechanisms on the wall panels.

"These are all just hotel records," she says. "I think this might really just be the manager's office."

"Still could be somethin' useful," Daryl grunts, fingertips tracing the outline of a panel. "Look for bank numbers or floorplans."

They work in silence for a few more moments, until Beth pauses over a few pages from a file she just opened. "There's another wing underground," she says. "There's not really anything about it except that's called the Basement. But that's gotta be something."

"Yeah," Daryl agrees, but just then they can hear a pair of footsteps in the hall outside. Footsteps that are stopping at the office door.

Every muscle in Daryl's body tenses, and he's scanning the room for something,  _anything_  to use as a weapon. Meanwhile, Beth has stuffed the files back into the drawer she pulled them from. The doorknob jiggles as she steps over to him and hisses, "Take off your jacket!"

"What?" he says, dumbfounded.

For some ungodly reason she's torn the pins from her hair to let it tumble in a golden cascade down her back, which makes him irrationally wonder if she's got a stiletto blade hidden in there with the lockpicks, but now she's brushing one of the straps of her dress off her shoulder and loosening his tie.

She seems to notice his bewilderment and stills her body just as there is the sound of a key in the lock.

"Do you trust me?" she asks, those huge blue eyes of hers somehow vulnerable and ironbound at the same time.

It's a loaded question that they don't have time to unpack, and he still doesn't understand what she's getting at. But then several things happen at all once: the door begins to swing open, Daryl instinctively reaches for a handgun, and Beth grabs his face and pulls him to her lips in a scorching kiss.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> much love and many thanks to readers and reviewers! :)

Her body feels like a living sunbeam against his, and his entire being is a perfect storm.

Part of him is fighting tooth and nail with his instinct to push her away, to retreat and regain his footing. This sudden intimacy is almost an assault on his senses and it's all he can do not to lash out in self-defense. But a deeper part of him yearns for her with a desperate ache, like a drowning man burns for air and sunlight.

Her hands are shoving his jacket off his shoulders, running teasingly over his biceps. As the jacket hits the floor he finally understands what she is doing, knows that it's only an act. But just as he opens his lips to taste her, she breaks away with a giggle.

"Oh!" she says, quickly pulling her dress strap back onto her shoulder.

Daryl forces his eyes to the newcomers, two security guards who look like they wouldn't have minded if Beth hadn't noticed their entrance.

"You two can't be in here," one of the guards says with a shit-eating grin.

"Sorry," Beth giggles again. "It's just that we… well, you know… and we got lost..." She cuddles up against Daryl, her hands featherlight on his chest, and he's pretty sure that his face is on fire but that doesn't stop him from glaring daggers at the two men by the door.

"Uh-huh," the guard nods, and his knowing smirk hasn't wavered for a second. "Isn't that what your room upstairs is for?"

"We're leavin'," Daryl snarls, moving closer to the guards to get right in their faces so that Beth has a second to grab her shoes without them ogling her. It's clearly a posturing move, and it's an empty threat since the guards have all the power, but  _damn_ if it doesn't feel good when they both blanch a little at his scowl.

"Come on, babe," Beth says, and she's got her heels and his suit jacket in her hands.

He turns his attention fully over to her, and she's giving him this  _come-hither_  look, and he realizes that while he had been planning fifteen discreet ways to kill the guards for leering at her, she's still been acting. He has absolutely no idea what it looks like when a man is about to take his wife upstairs to bed her, so in a combination of a desperate bid for plausibility and the insane need to  _get the hell out of there_ , he grabs her hand and practically drags her out of the room.

When they are in the hallway again they can both hear the guards laughing inside, and Daryl fights down the urge to go beat the living hell out of them. The look Beth is giving to him is a warning and an assessment in equal measure, so he unclenches his fist and takes a deep breath.

They don't have time to check in verbally, though, because just then the two guards pop back through the door and Beth is back into character in an instant.

"We'll show you to your rooms," the one guard says. "Wouldn't want you two getting...  _lost_  again."

"That would be lovely," Beth giggles, hanging off Daryl's arm. "We're in room 412, I think."

Daryl silently glowers at both guards until a subtle but firm squeeze on his hand from Beth reminds him that she's not actually his wife and that she's perfectly capable of defending herself, but they're still undercover and he needs to act the part. He schools his expression into neutrality and nods curtly.

The walk to the elevators and the subsequent ride up is completely wordless, although Beth is still shimmering and incandescent even in her silence. And at least the two guards have regained some semblance of professionalism.

Still, being escorted to their room is so uncomfortable that Daryl can feel his face heating up again, and by the time they get to the door marked  _412_ , he's glad that his hair is shaggy enough to hide his red ears.

The first guard gestures to the door and says, "Here we are. Is there anything else we can do for you, Mr. and Mrs. Jones?"

 _Y'all can go to hell,_  Daryl thinks.

"I don't think so," Beth says brightly, putting a hand on the guard's arm before fishing out a keycard from her clutch. The lock flashes green and she lets herself in, casting an airy "Thanks for your help, boys!" over her shoulder as she goes.

Daryl takes a beat longer to go through the door. He turns to give one last frown to the two guards, who are still lingering in the hall. He makes sure to take up as much space as possible in the doorframe so they can't see into the room, and clearly states with his stance that they will have to leave first.

"Have a good night, sir," one guard says with another cheshire grin, nodding significantly over Daryl's shoulder.

And Daryl has no idea what comes over him, but he snaps "I will," and shuts the door in their faces.

It takes him a second to collect himself, and he hates that this place has him so off balance, but  _damn_  does he hate being cooped up in this fancy hotel. He takes a steadying breath and turns around. Beth is already checking the usual spots for bugs, so he takes the other half of the room, sizing it up as he goes.

It is furnished just as lavishly as the rest of the hotel, with a huge four poster bed under a golden canopy as the focal point of the room. There isn't much furniture beyond that, except a pair of delicate nightstands and a tall wardrobe on one wall. The whole thing is very baroque and it's making Daryl's skin crawl.

Beth pokes her head out of the ensuite bathroom which she had been checking.  _All clear?_  she mouths, mindful in case he's still looking.

"Yeah," he says.

"Good," she replies, going over to their luggage. It's been neatly set on a rack at the foot of the bed, and she opens her suitcase and pulls out a bundle of clothes. "There's not much point in going back to the party since those guards got a good look at our faces, so I'm taking a shower."

Daryl just nods without really making eye contact, because somehow it is only just now hitting him that there is  _only one bed_. The bathroom door clicks shut behind her as he scans the rest of the room for an alternative, but there's really nothing that would even remotely work as a second option.

He can hear the sound of water running in the bathroom, and he realizes that he can finally change out of these formal clothes. But he has no idea how long it takes for Beth to shower, so he's out of his suit and into a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt in record time, just in case. Then he gives his luggage a once-over to make sure security hasn't confiscated anything.

A few minutes later and Beth reemerges, dressed in pink plaid pajamas and a tank top. Her hair is still dry, but the steam from the shower has curled all the fine hairs around her face. Daryl's stomach does a little flutter and he looks away.

"Here's the schedule of the weekend. We should go over the plan for tomorrow," she says, picking up a glossy leaflet from one of the bedside tables and plopping onto the mattress with her legs crossed under her. It's such an artlessly girlish move that Daryl almost can't shut out Merle's sly drone,  _Well ain't that cute, my baby sister Darylina at a slumber party._  He shakes the voice away; his brother has no place here.

"Says there's a 'demonstration' on the shooting range in the morning at nine," Beth is saying. "You should go and get a look at what kinda munitions the Governor's got, maybe chat with some of the other people there." If she is amused by the idea of him  _chatting_ , it doesn't show on her face.

"What 'bout you?" he grunts.

Beth turns the page. "Says here there's a spa day for the ladies."

"You gonna get your nails done?" Daryl growls, even though he knows it isn't fair to take his aggression out on her. But he's still tense because of the guards, and Merle isn't helping either.

"No, are you?" Beth levels those enormous steely eyes on him, one brow arched.

He huffs, and goes back to pretending that he's doing something important with the folded clothes in his bag.

"What I was about to say is that while all the ladies are at their spa day, I can take a look around inside the hotel," Beth continues.

"Look around where?" he asks warily.

"Just around," she shrugs. "Wherever I can get into. Nobody notices me."

He can't really believe that, because he's noticed her since the first day she came to base last year.

"You ain't goin' down to the Basement," he says. "Rick sent us in to get intel on the Governor, not the whole damn hotel."

"Yeah, sure," she agrees, turning the page. "Anyway, if I can't get anywhere, I'll just go to the spa. Maybe I can get some good gossip." She puts away the leaflet and picks up a second, heavier catalogue.

Meanwhile, Daryl has run out of plausible things to do with his luggage, so he goes to the opposite side of the bed from Beth and grabs off a couple of fluffy pillows. The floor is hardwood covered by a thick rug, but he's slept on worse.

"What are you doin'?" Beth asks, looking up from the catalogue in confusion.

"Gettin' comfy," he says as he tosses the pillows into a makeshift nest as far away from the bed as possible.

"Oh hell no," she says, and a small part of him wonders if she's always said that phrase or if she's echoing him from earlier on the dancefloor. "This is a king-sized bed, Daryl. There's plenty of room for both of us."

"Nah," he says with a shake of his head, avoiding eye contact again.

She scoots across the bed and hops off the other side, and he's already tensing by the time she gets to him. When she reaches out to touch his arm, he shifts away and she gives him an irritated look.

"See, that's just it," she says as if he's proven her point. "Our cover story is that we're married, but you can barely let me touch you. Sleepin' in a corner isn't gonna help you lighten up."

"We're on a mission without backup in one of the most dangerous hotels in the world," Daryl growls. "This ain't the time to lighten up. We ain't in a damn romance novel."

"We  _are_  on a mission without backup, but that just means our best defense is each other, and the best way to do that is convince everybody that we're exactly what we say we are, which  _is_  a damn romance novel," Beth counters. "But you're so spooked all the time, it looks like I'm abusin' you!"

He bristles and rounds on her, getting in her face because he knows his size should scare her back a pace. "The hell do you know about anything like that, girl?"

She doesn't step back, but there is maybe a flicker in her eyes that she regrets her words. "You know what I meant."

"No, I don't! I don't know you at all, because we were never meant to be partners!" Daryl retorts. He stalks a step away from her, trying to get a little distance again. "This whole damn mission was a mistake before it even turned out that the Woodbury is the Governor's. We are in some  _deep shit_  in case you haven't noticed."

"Oh get over us bein' partners," Beth says, her nose wrinkled in disgust. "Clearly you don't think I'm capable of bein' a field agent, but all you've done is bellyache and complain since Rick gave us our assignment. You don't get to treat me like an idiot just 'cause you're scared!"

He glares at her and injects as much venom as he can into his voice. "I ain't afraid of  _nothin'_."

"Then get in the damn bed!" she practically yells, pointing toward it like a mother sending a child to his room.

" _No_ ," he snarls, stomping toward the door until he realizes that he's supposed to be making love to his wife and it would be weird if he left. He changes direction to the bathroom and slams the door behind him.

He flops down on the floor with his back up against the door, like he needs the extra line of defense in case she tries to come in. In the first few seconds after slamming the door, he can hear her footsteps and a few huffed breaths right outside, but she doesn't try the knob.

She's right, of course, on both counts. He  _is_ too tense around her, and sharing space in a bed with her will force him to get a little more comfortable. And he's pretty sure he hasn't been this afraid since he was a boy - something about this op feels wrong, and he's terrified that he's gonna get Beth killed. And if he's being honest with himself (which he's really not), the fact that she can read him so easily unnerves him, too.

He's not actually sure how long he sits in there, but after a good long while he finally gets up and brushes his teeth, delaying the inevitable. It occurs to him that he could simply sleep in the tub, but he pushes the thought away. Glenn would laugh his skinny ass off if he ever found out. So he steels himself and opens the door.

All the lights are off except the lamp by his side of the bed. Beth is barely visible under the covers, and still enough that she could be asleep. Daryl bites back a sigh, hovering between relief at the reprieve from their fight and a strange disappointment that she's shut him out. But then he notices that she turned down the sheets on his side, a combination of invitation and command if there ever was one.

Moving even softer than he does in the woods while hunting, he eases into the bed and under the covers, as if she's a deer that will startle if she notices him. It's ridiculous, because she's more lioness than deer. But he still doesn't let go of the breath he's holding until he decides that he didn't wake her.

 _You're in trouble, Dixon_ , he thinks to himself as he switches off the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you haven't noticed, i'm basically covering as many fake-married tropes as possible, because reasons.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! :)

Daryl Dixon isn't really one to wake up slowly. He's always snapped out of sleep quickly - probably a throwback from when he was a kid, and it's only served him well as a field agent. Never know when somebody's gonna hit you, so it's best to have your shit together.

But this morning, he's so relaxed that he becomes conscious of one sense at a time. First that his muscles are warm and loose, next that wherever he is smells heavenly. And then he hears soft breaths behind him and feels a small, lithe body pressed against his back, and all at once he is sharply awake.

One of Beth's arms is draped lazily over his side and he wonders how on earth he slept through this. He's frozen now, completely at her mercy. Maybe if he stays still for long enough she'll roll away in her sleep.

She  _is_  shifting a bit, but it's only to settle more fully against him. Her body is molded so closely to his back that he can feel every inch of her, including the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathes. There is a rush of heat to his groin, and he thinks,  _Damn it._

"Beth," he says, wishing his voice didn't sound quite so strained.

She stirs again and it's all he can do not to just fling himself out of the bed entirely. He knows he's overreacting, but this is  _Beth Greene_ , golden girl of the CIA's Georgia branch. He's all dirt and regret and everything that she isn't - she absolutely must not, at all costs, know that waking up tangled up in her has given him morning wood.

"Oh," she says sleepily, and withdraws. Now that he's free of her, he drags himself upright to sit on the edge of the bed, and he takes the blanket with him like a cocoon for safety.

"Thought you said there was plenty of room for both of us," he growls, avoiding eye contact. He can tell she's sitting up too, because he's still painfully aware of her despite their distance.

"Couldn't help it," she replies, and it sounds like she's stretching. "You hog the covers."

He realizes it's true, that somehow in the night he stole all the bedding to his side. "Ain't my fault it's so damn cold in here," he grunts, even though he's more on fire than cold at the moment.

Just then there's a knock on the door and Beth pops up to go to it. Her tank top has ridden up just enough to expose an inch of smooth skin on her lower back, and Daryl looks away with a barely suppressed groan. He drags a hand through his hair and forces his attention back to the door, muscles tensing for an attacker out of instinct.

But Beth is peering through the fisheye, and she swivels back to give him a grin. "Room service," she says brightly as she turns the knob.

Daryl calculates the distance between himself and the bathroom, planning an escape while she's distracted. And once her back is turned to let the bellman in with the breakfast cart, he does exactly that - hauls ass right into the bathroom faster than a bolt from his crossbow and slams the door behind him.

He leans up against it, breathing hard. He can hear the bellman wheeling the cart across the tiles and Beth's murmured thanks, then the bedroom door shutting again. There's a metallic clang, probably Beth taking the cover off a tray.

"Where'd you go?" she calls conversationally through the door.

"Takin' a piss," Daryl snaps back, but he heads to the shower instead. It's huge and fancy and it takes him a minute too long to figure out the faucet, but he finally switches it on. Not only will a shower help clear his head, it will give Beth time to get dressed.

Twenty minutes later and he belatedly realizes that he didn't bring a change of clothes into the bathroom. Putting his sweats back on seems like a ridiculous thing to do, but there's no way he's leaving this room in just a towel. He stands, dripping wet and paralyzed by indecision.

His salvation comes in the form of two incredibly fluffy robes hanging off the back of the door. He shakes his head like a dog to dry his hair, not caring that he sends water everywhere, and puts on one of the robes. Yeah, it's girly enough that he wouldn't want anybody else in the CIA to see him in it, but even though he only really met her yesterday, he already knows that Beth's not going to give him any shit about it.

"I ate all the crepes," she announces when he opens the bathroom door. She's sitting crosslegged at the end of the bed with a selection of trays spread out beside her, and she hasn't changed out of her pajamas. Not that he can really blame her, since breakfast had obviously been her first priority.

She unfolds from her perch and grabs a bundle from her suitcase. "Thought you'd never finish. You take longer showers than I do," she says as she brushes past him to go into the bathroom.

He just grunts a response, too flabbergasted for words. Is she really that naive?

The bathroom door clicks shut behind her, followed immediately by, "Oh my god, Daryl, have you never heard of a towel?"

"Sorry," he mutters, now a little penitent for shaking his hair out.

There's no response except the sound of the faucet coming on, so he takes the opportunity to get dressed in cargo pants and a heavy black buttondown. Then he wanders over to what's left of breakfast and settles in to finish it off.

He could just leave and head down to the shooting range for his part of their mission today, but he lingers. Part of him wants to check in with Beth before he goes, and another part of him wishes that they didn't have to split up at all. He tells himself that it's because he just wants to watch her back. (He knows that's not the only reason.)

When the bathroom door opens a couple minutes later, he tries to make it look like he's been preoccupied with something instead of just waiting for her. Her long hair is up in a ponytail with a braid half-hidden in the pale waves, and she's wearing the cutest damn outfit he's ever seen even if it's just skinny jeans, cowgirl boots, and a fitted cardigan.

"Oh," she says, hands full of mysterious bottles and tubes that he can only assume are makeup. "Thought you'd left."

" 'Bout to," he replies gruffly as he looks around for something to pick up before realizing he left his crossbow back at base.

"So, meet up at lunch? Looks like there's gonna be a buffet." There is morning sunlight pouring through the window behind her and she looks like something out of a fairytale.

He just hums his assent, certain that he will be able to find her later. Even in a crowd he couldn't miss that golden fall of hair or the way she smiles. It spooks him, how naturally he's falling into rhythm with her, so he grabs his leather jacket and heads for the door.

"Have a good day," Beth calls as he's halfway out.

There's a couple of guests walking down the hall right by him and he panics a little. "You too, hun," he replies, practically choking on the unfamiliar petname, and closes the door before he can see her reaction. He is  _such_  a shitty undercover agent.

He's got a basic idea of where to go in his head, but he follows the trickle of other people down to the lobby and out the back of the hotel. There's an option to be shuttled to the shooting range on a golf cart, but Daryl waves them on and follows the footpath. Walking will give him a chance to get a better feel for the place.

A big chunk of the grounds directly behind the hotel is all beautifully manicured gardens with tidy limestone pathways. It looks like it's been designed to imitate the gardens of Versailles on a smaller scale, which makes Daryl suppress a grimace of disgust.

It's a good ten minute walk, but once he trudges around a tall row of windbreak trees, the shooting range comes into view. It's hard to gauge whether it's a permanent fixture or not, but Daryl suspects that it was set up purposefully for this expo. He guesses it's about three-quarters of a mile from the hotel based on how fast he walked there, and that's hardly far enough to keep the noise level down for guests.

As he gets closer he sees that the morning is already in full swing; there are about eighty or ninety men already there. Some are on the range itself, testing the weapons for themselves, while others are milling around the information booths set up in stations. Daryl pauses a couple dozen yards out, analyzing how much firepower is actively in play. There's no doubt that the Governor has a massive amount of inventory to move this weekend.

Feeling incredibly naked without the weight of his crossbow over his shoulder or even a handgun in his belt, Daryl walks the last few paces to join the rest of the attendees. They're pretty much all men, with a couple of the fancier suits being shadowed by immaculately dressed women with clipboards. Most of the attendees are dressed like him, though, and he wonders how many of them are mercs.

Daryl approaches the first information booth and realizes that the weapon displayed here has been pulled directly from the CIA development headquarters in DC and rushed through production. It's got a grip that will only respond to its owner's fingerprints, and it hasn't been implemented to all agents yet. He stays well clear of touching any, just in case there's an autosave function. No need to leave a bioscan of his fingerprints anywhere.

He moves to another booth, keeping his face impassive. This one is for bullets with facial recognition, either as a general setting or for a specific target. The idea had been abandoned by the CIA at least two years ago, because even with the technology to recognize a face, there wasn't an effective way to guide the bullet after it had been shot. This new iteration is probably a scam and he moves on.

Some of the tables are just basic firearms in various forms: some with lighter frames, some heavier; one semi-automatic has a retractable bayonet. He decides to give that one a try, mostly to keep up appearances. He's just pulled out his security pass to let the attendant check it out for him when an unfamiliar hand claps down on his shoulder.

Daryl whips around, fists already clenched, when he realizes it's the Governor. He forces himself to relax, to appear at ease even though his blood pressure just skyrocketed.

"Heard you had a good night last night," the taller man says with a smile that Daryl can't read. "Two of my guards reported they found you and your wife in the manager's office during the party."

"Sorry about that," Daryl says, shrugging to hide his discomfort. "We got lost, and the door was unlocked. Didn't mean any harm."

"Oh, don't apologize," the Governor replies in an indulgently dismissive tone.

Daryl knows he should be working him for information, but he's never been good at subtly directing a conversation. Part of him wishes that Beth was here because she would know what to do - and another part of him wishes Beth a thousand miles away from this awful man. People like the Governor make Daryl want to disappear into the woods forever.

"Nice setup you got here," he forces himself to say.

"Thank you," the Governor nods, looking in the middle distance thoughtfully before switching his attention back to Daryl. "So tell me about yourself, Mr. Jones. Where did you say your company was based out of?"

"I didn't," Daryl replies to stall. This was where their cover story starts to break down, because it makes sense for Glenn to have contacts overseas, but definitely not a redneck like Daryl Dixon. "Our headquarters are located in-"

"Y'all talkin' business on a shootin' range?" It takes a second for him to register that Beth has appeared next to him, her voice half a giggle and her arm tucking into his. The Governor looks a little surprised but not at all displeased, if the subtle once-over he's giving her body is any indication.

"You're absolutely right," the Governor says, grinning pleasantly now. "This is hardly the place to talk shop. I take it this is your wife…?" He addresses the last bit to Daryl with a questioning look.

"Yes, this is Blair," Daryl says. "Blair, this is… well, I never caught your name."

"Just the Governor," the other man replies as he takes Beth's hand and presses an old-fashioned kiss to her knuckles. "A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Jones."

"And you, Governor," Beth says in a breathless giggle. "Your hotel is so beautiful, have you had it for long?" She's already doing it, already trying to get information out of him, but Daryl has been around more rough men than she has and he recognizes the covetous gleam in the Governor's eyes behind his pleasant smile.

"Oh, about four or five years," the Governor says. "But I thought I arranged a spa day for the ladies?"

Beth wiggles her fingers to show off her nailpolish. "Already got a manicure, but I couldn't let you boys have  _all_  the fun."

The Governor looks like his interest is really piqued now, and as Daryl shoots a glance around, he sees that a lot of the other men have noticed Beth's presence, too.

"Do you shoot?" the Governor asks her.

"Only a little," she says, nudging Daryl with her hip. "Only when Devon lets me."

"May I?" The Governor holds out a hand to her, and it takes every ounce of Daryl's self-control not to physically move between them.  _She knows what she's doin',_  he reminds himself. So he lets her go, watches as the Governor puts her hand into the crook of his elbow and guides her to one of the shooting booths.

Now that Daryl has a second to regroup, he realizes that she really shouldn't be here. Not because she can't handle herself, but because she's supposed to still be gathering intel inside the hotel. Whatever she found out must be important for her to come find him before their arranged meetup at lunch.

He glances over at her again, and now she's got a pistol in her hands and the Governor behind her, his arm around her to guide her aim at the bullseye. She fires and misses altogether, which Daryl knows is an act because he's seen her target scores. And even though she's laughing about it and taking aim again, something about the Governor's stance behind her gives Daryl pause.

She's hardly a damsel in distress, but he can't help but think that she might need rescuing this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> actual, like, plotiness coming in the next chapter. ;)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a quick recap because it's been awhile (sorry about that!): beth has just joined daryl at the shooting ranges, where the governor whisks her away much to daryl's consternation.

Daryl flashes his security pass to the attendant, who nods and hands over a semi-automatic and a couple extra mags. At this point, he would look like a weak-ass coward if he doesn’t step in with the Governor and Beth, and the last thing he needs is every man at the hotel thinking they can zero in on her without repercussions.

There’s a small table behind them in the booth, and Daryl drops the extra mags onto it a little more loudly than strictly necessary. Beth jumps with a startled giggle, and it doesn’t escape Daryl’s notice that she takes the opportunity to get some space from the Governor. The taller man turns around with a half-veiled glower.

“Mind if I cut in?” Daryl drawls, gesturing with the gun that he holds loosely in one arm. It is much, much bigger than the pistol that Beth has returned to the Governor -- a deliberate move on Daryl’s part, and he can see that it is not lost on the Governor.

But he nods his head graciously, that pleasant facade back up. “Of course. It’s been a pleasure, Mrs. Jones. Have a nice day, you two.”

“Thanks,” Beth chirps at his back as he walks away before turning her attention to Daryl. “Thanks. He was starting to get a little handsy.”

Daryl wants to say that it was the least he could do after how many times Beth has had his back already, but he just grunts noncommittally and loads a mag into the semi-automatic.

“Ooooh, show me how to do that,” Beth coos.

For a split second he is perplexed why she’s still playing dumb, until he realizes that she’s sidled closer under the pretense of him explaining the mechanics of his firearm. He pops the mag back out and replaces it, slower this time.

“We have a problem,” Beth says in an undertone, although she keeps her face cheerful as if she’s just gossipping. “It was hard to tell from the schematics I saw, but it looks like the Basement is actually a laboratory of some kind.”

“The hell did you find schematics to look at?” Daryl growls, jamming the magazine in one last time.

“I didn’t go down to the Basement, like you asked,” she replies brightly. “But we should check it out now. Who knows what’s goin’ on down there.”

“He’s probably just makin’ meth,” Daryl mutters. He knows that he’s kinda being sulky, but Rick had _promised_ him that this was gonna be an easy op and now Beth wants to literally go into the belly of the beast.

“Empty that mag and I’ll admire you,” Beth whispers. “It’ll look weird if we just keep talkin’.”

He sees the sense in that and fires off the weapon in several quick bursts at his target at the end of the field. Beth holds up her end pretty convincingly, giggling and clapping like a true southern belle. He returns to the table and pretends to carefully inspect the trigger mechanism as she continues.

“Even if they _are_ just makin’ drugs, wouldn’t it be nice to get somethin’ tangible for Rick? I mean, a meth lab under the hotel would be enough to put the Governor away for years.”

“Yeah,” Daryl has to agree. “Fine, we’ll go. Just for a look around.”

She’s been moving closer to him this whole time, which should probably be sending instinctive red flags up, but he finds that he doesn’t mind it. She does it under the pretense of looking at the gun in his hands as he fiddles with it, but once he concedes to checking out the Basement, her impossibly blue eyes flick up to meet his.

“How’re we supposed to get out of here without anybody noticin’?” he asks gruffly to cover the hitch in his breath.

“That’s easy,” she smiles coyly. “Grab my ass.”

He fights not to recoil in shock. “ _Shit_ , Beth.”

“After last night, every member of staff here thinks that we’re nymphos,” she says so innocently that he desperately wonders if she knows what she’s doing to him. “If we make people think they know where we’re going, no one will be looking for us.”

“Yeah, and it’s also gonna attract a lot of attention,” he mutters, doing everything in his power to look like he actually has himself together instead of internally losing it.

She moves over to his side of the table and leans up against the edge, close to him, with the most devastating come-hither look that he’s ever seen. “You got a better idea?”

He still hesitates, knowing full well that Maggie will castrate him if she ever finds out.

“Do it,” Beth says, her eyes flashing iron, “or I'll grab _your_ ass.”

“Shit,” he says again, resigned this time.

At least she takes the lead, stepping even closer to him and putting her arms around his neck. They’ve already kissed once before, but this time is different -- it’s like she’s on fire and he’s the only thing that can save her. It’s hungry and it’s hot and it really doesn’t take much effort for him to slide one hand from her waist down to the back pocket of her jeans.

That elicits a shocked giggle from her as she breaks away, and for a split second he’s reeling without her. She playfully swats his chest and then goes up on tiptoes to peck his lips again, and he remembers what they’re doing.

There’s a couple wolf-whistles from farther down the range, which Daryl tries to ignore as he reaches for her again and draws her close enough that he’s pretty sure she can hear his pounding heartbeat. This time he initiates the kiss, and she melts into him, one of her cold hands going to his cheek. He’s pretty sure this is the closest to heaven that his soul is ever gonna get, and he’s definitely sure that he’s going to hell for ever touching this sunshine girl.

She pulls back again, face alight with mischief. “Let’s go back upstairs,” she says in a stage-whisper, loud enough for people nearby to overhear but quiet enough to make them feel like it wasn’t intentional.

It’s all he can to nod and let her take his hand. He dumps the semi-automatic back with the attendant (who wavers between disgust and amusement) as Beth trails giggling kisses from Daryl’s ear to his neck and then they’re heading back up the path toward the hotel.

They keep up the act until they’re well out of sight of the shooting ranges, but even then she doesn’t drop his hand. They don’t really speak until they’re back inside the hotel. Beth has directed them into what seems to be a service entrance, because Daryl can hear the racket of washing machines somewhere close.

“How we gonna get down to the Basement?” he asks grumpily, looking around the nondescript hallway.

Beth’s already walking down it, pausing to examine each door as she passes them. “We’ll take the stairs,” she says without slowing down.

Daryl doesn’t have much choice other than follow her, although he’s on higher alert than she seems to be. Now that he thinks about it, he wonders if Beth Greene has felt fear the entire time they’ve been here. He kinda wishes that she would, if only to make her more cautious.

She’s about a third of the way down the hall when she decides on a door and goes on one knee to pick its lock. “I think this is the right one,” she says as she works.

The lock clicks, and she stands as he moves into a more defensive position beside her. When she sees that he’s ready, she swings the door open quickly and he goes in first, fists up. There’s no one inside, though -- its just a gray room with a row of lockers on one wall and another door opposite.

Beth shuts the door behind them and goes to investigate the lockers while Daryl is still scanning the entire room for boobytraps or god knows what. He nearly has a heart attack when something white and fabricy flies at his face until he realizes that Beth threw it at him.

“Put that on,” she says, already doing the same with her own.

He opens it up and sees that it’s a lab coat that she pulled from one of the lockers. “Shouldn’t we be wearin’ scrubs under these?” he asks as he pulls it on.

“Yeah.” She draws her long golden ponytail out from under the collar and moves to the door opposite the one they came in, patting down her new pockets as she goes. “Looks like this one needs a keycard.”

“Can prob’ly hotwire it.” Daryl angles her out of his way to get a better look at the electric panel beside the door. It’s the kind you would just wave a card over, no buttons or keypad or anything. Still, he’s pretty good with figuring out stuff like this. “You got anything to pry this open?”

“Might trigger an alarm if you trip it,” Beth says, handing him one of her lockpicks.

“Best pray I don’t trip it, then,” he responds as he uses the butt end of her tool to gently lever the edge of the panel up. It gives without much resistance, and then it’s just a matter of solving the puzzle of wires and circuits.

Despite most of his concentration focused on opening the door, Daryl is still acutely aware of Beth as she moves around the room. The labcoat is too big on her and she’s folded the sleeves back to keep her hands free. He schools his mind to the task at hand and carefully brushes a couple wires out of the way to see behind them.

“How’s it goin’?” she asks once a few minutes have passed.

It just so happens to be perfect timing, because he can answer her with the satisfying thunk of the door unlocking instead of words. Beth grabs the handle to keep it unlocked while he replaces the panel, just in case it’s on a timer. Once the panel is back in place as if they’ve never been there, she swings the door open like she owns the whole place and walks through.

Daryl hates letting the door latch behind him as he follows her. She gives him a look like she understands, but then nods toward a matching panel on this side.

“C’mon,” he grunts, pushing past her. They’re at the top of a spiral staircase, which he thinks is some real cliché evil scientist shit. It’s coldly lit and all industrial grey, from the steps to the walls. Their boots make a dull ring as they go down.

It’s probably three flights to the bottom, where it opens up into a wide hallway. It’s nothing like the lavishly decorated hallways upstairs; this continues the austere style of the stairway. There aren’t even that many doors, although they can see that the hallway splits off into several side passages. The whole place is next-level unsettling and Daryl would give just about anything to be back at the shooting ranges instead of underground.

But once again, Beth is two steps ahead of him -- literally. She’s already trying a knob on the door closest to them, and before he can hiss a warning, she opens it and steps through.

Heart in his throat, he rushes to follow her. The room is so darkly lit that it takes a second for his eyes to adjust after the cold brightness of the hallway, but after a few blinks he gets his bearings. It’s a file storage room of some sort, and completely deserted other than the two of them. The overhead lights are off until Beth flicks them on.

“Go check those file cabinets,” she says, gesturing to the other end of the small room. She’s already thumbing through a drawer.

He does as he’s told and even gets as far as pulling a couple folders out to look through, even though all this medical terminology is a little beyond him. He can patch up a gunshot wound in the field while still under enemy fire, but the title of this folder is _Congenital Hepatic Hemangoiendothelioma Type II_ and it’s kinda giving him a headache.

Beth doesn’t seem to be too troubled by it, though. She’s poring over an open file in her hands, brows furrowed.

“What is it?” he asks, abandoning his file cabinet because talking to her is more interesting.

“I think they’re developin’ a new drug,” she replies without looking up. She puts the file back in the drawer and pulls out another. “I only took a couple pre-med classes in the academy, but Daddy taught me a little about pharmaceuticals. See this chart?” She tilts the page toward him so he can look, but he’s way too distracted by how damn smart she is. “I think this means it’s an intravenous drug instead of oral or airborne. Look for anything labeled test or study or something like that.”

Daryl acquiesces with a grunt and starts scanning the labels on each drawer of the cabinets while she pulls out yet another file. It takes a few minutes for him to find what he’s looking for, but when he looks back at Beth to point out the drawer marked _field trials_ , the look on her face makes his stomach drop uneasily.

“Here,” he says, and she’s so absorbed in what she’s reading that she doesn’t respond. “Beth?”

“Hmm? Oh.” Now she looks up, her features still clouded with concern. “This looks bad, Daryl. Whatever this drug is, it’s designed to shut down every part of the brain except the amygdala.”

“What’s that?” he asks.

“It’s the part of the brain that causes aggression,” she says. “This drug completely shuts down the frontal lobe. It’s like it’s meant to trigger rage without any self-control.”

He hands her a file and flips one open for himself. This is more plain-speak than technical jargon, so he doesn’t need Beth to explain that what he’s reading coupled with what she just said is very, very bad.

_Test subject exhibited highly elevated pain tolerance_ , one case file says. _Test subject fought for thirteen consecutive hours with no signs of fatigue until subject was put down._

“We have to get a sample,” Beth says, jarring him from the file. “Or a computer, to download the files. It looks like they’re almost done with testing and they’re ready to move into production. I don’t know what this drug is for, but if we can get the info to Rick, at least our labs can examine it.”

“Yeah,” Daryl says, hating this mission even more by the second.

They put everything back just like they found it. This time, Daryl takes the lead back into the hallway. They’ve been really lucky so far, and he’s pretty sure that can’t hold for much longer. If worse comes to worst, he figures he can knock out a couple doctors and then they can bolt to freedom before an alarm is raised.

But the hallway is still empty when they step back into it. If there’s anybody working down here, they must be holed up somewhere deeper underground.

Daryl and Beth sweep the rest of the hall, but it seems like they’re in an archival section of the Basement and the actual labs are elsewhere. As much as Daryl hates going further into enemy territory, their only option is to try one of the corridors that splits off from this one.

As soon as they set foot in the new hallway, he immediately gets the sense that it’s more populated. It’s not even that they can hear anyone, he just _knows_. He puts a hand up to caution Beth, and she noticeably treads more lightly.

But a second later, they can both hear the unmistakable sound of a door opening and slamming shut around the corner, and a set of footsteps coming in their direction. Beth points to the door closest to them, and Daryl grinds his teeth as he steps over. The room could very well be occupied, but they can’t be caught in the hallway. Something tells him that a kiss and coy apology wouldn’t get them out of this one.

The footsteps are dangerously close to rounding the corner now, so he brushes away the ridiculous flutters at the thought of kissing, and follows Beth into the room.

“Clear,” she says almost immediately after entering, which is good because he’s focused on the door in case the footsteps decide to come in. But after a moment, he hears them passing by.

“Ready?” he asks, turning to look for Beth.

She’s transfixed by something else, though; she’s pushed back a curtain that spans almost the entire length of the opposite wall, and what lies beyond feels like a kick to the gut.

The curtain had concealed a one-way mirror. In the next room, there are four miserable, huddled people in a bare prison room.

“Test subjects,” Beth whispers.

Daryl steps closer, because he’s pretty sure he’s seen that dirty blonde hair before. And when the figure inside turns her head to speak to the prisoner next to her, he realizes he _has_.

It’s Andrea.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! i’m not dead! i am SO sorry that i disappeared. i started a new job and helped my best friend get married, and this chapter was like a little kid running away from me and screaming HAHA NOPE NOT GONNA BE WRITTEN. basically the struggle is real, which is a thing i’m pretty sure only old people say now.
> 
> a quick recap of what happened last time: beth and daryl broke into the Basement to find out what the Governor is hiding, only to discover that he is developing a superdrug and holding four people prisoner, including andrea. oh no!

He's halfway out the door by the time Beth can grab his arm, and he roughly shakes her off before he comes to his senses. Luckily there's no one out in the hall to see him yank the door open and then grudgingly shut it again.

"We ain't leavin' them behind," he snarls, pacing. Rationally he knows he's flaring up out of instinct, that awful primal urge to protect that makes him sick with fear, but it's hard to be rational when his blood is pounding like a war drum.

"We won't," Beth agrees. She's watching him, wary, probably wondering how much she's gonna have to talk him down. "But we don't have an exit strategy, and we don't know anythin' about their condition."

She's right, of course. He's ready to bust them out with his bare hands, but that will just make a bad situation worse. He and Beth need to regroup and figure out a plan.

"You know them?" she asks, her eyes flickering over to the glass and the four people beyond.

"Not all of 'em," he says. "Just the blonde. Name's Andrea."

Beth's brows furrow. "Wasn't she…?"

"Yeah, she's former CIA. Prob'ly retired around the same time you joined up."

"I heard a little bit about her, but I never met her," Beth says. Daryl is pretty sure this is her way of calming him down, by getting him to look at concrete facts instead of flammable emotions. He's not sure how he feels about it, but it  _is_ working.

"She retired after her sister was killed in the field on a mission," he says. "Shit hit the fan quick. It was ugly."

"You were there?"

"Yeah," he replies, finally chancing a look through the one-way mirror again. "At the end. I was an asshole."

"Anyone can turn into an asshole when a mission goes south," Beth says resolutely. "What matters is who we are today."

He doesn't mention that  _this_  mission has been steadily going to deeper and deeper shit since they set foot in the Grande Woodbury Hotel. He almost wonders if she's even noticed how far off-book they are - jumping from reconnaissance to rescue hasn't phased her a bit.

Now she's closing the curtain over the mirror. "Any idea why Andrea is here? Is there any possibility that she reenlisted, went to deep black ops?"

Daryl shrugs, making a noncommittal sound. "Didn't know her  _that_  well. But Rick wouldn't send us in here blind about her unless he didn't know either. This mission wasn't an extraction, it was recon. Somethin's off."

"For now we'll assume she's a civilian along with the other three, then," Beth says. "Come on. We should keep movin'."

He's loathe to leave the prisoners for any longer than necessary, but it's too risky waiting around to formulate a plan right here. Better to return to the relative safety and privacy of their suite upstairs.

But when they open the door and step back into the hallway, Beth turns in the opposite direction of the way they came. This time it's his turn to grab her arm, and she swings back to face him with a puzzled look.

"Where are you goin'?" he asks in an undertone.

"We still gotta get a sample of the drug they're developin'," she patiently replies as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Although at this point I think it would be easier to find a computer and download the files."

"How 'bout a laptop?" he says.

"That should work," she says, looking thoughtful.

He's already shoving the door back open from where they just exited. "Saw one on the desk in here."

"Really?" Beth pushes past him to go back inside, and he follows.

"Mhm," he grunts as he nods toward the desk tucked into the corner of the room. He's surprised she missed it at first; then again, he's been sweeping rooms for potential valuables and weapons long before he joined the CIA.

A couple taps on the keyboard with her fingers, and the laptop stirs to life. The start-up process seems to take forever, but Daryl knows it's just because he's antsy. Finally, the laptop cycles through all its starting screens and stops at the login page.

"Password protected," he mutters, irritated that they'll have to waste valuable time trying to hack into an unfamiliar computer system.

"Good thing I have this," she replies as she draws a slim tube out of her pocket. He's pretty sure it's lipstick until she twists the top off and he realizes it's a USB plugin. "One of the tech interns just pushed his prototype through production last month, but it hasn't been field tested yet. Kinda like me."

_You're doin' just fine,_  Daryl thinks, but all he says out loud is, "Just looks like a flash drive to me. Still gotta log in to the computer."

"It  _is_  a flash drive," she says, plugging it into one of the USB ports on the side of the laptop, "but it automatically bypasses any passwords or security, and downloads everything it can find on the hard drive even if it's coded."

"One of the interns made this?" Daryl asks, truly interested. He's absolute  _shit_ at hacking computers, so this gadget would be a huge timesaver on some of his missions. "Rick know about it?"

"Not yet," Beth says with a tilt of her chin that dares him to question her taking untested tech into a live op. "Patrick Soriano has been developing it for a couple months, and when I got promoted to a full agent I asked him to give me one."

"You mean that skinny kid with the glasses?" Daryl says. Even though he has nothing to do with the new recruits, he still learns all of their names and faces. The technology department is a little harder to remember because he doesn't see them in training like the field agent trainees.

"Yeah," she replies.

"Think it'll work?"

"We'll find out when we get back to base," Beth says, arching a brow. Just then the little light on the flash drive lights up green, and she snatches it out of the USB port before powering the laptop back down. "Let's go."

The trip back upstairs goes even smoother than their descent earlier; it's a cakewalk back through the archival section they came in, and he easily hotwires the door open at the top of the stairs. They carefully fold their stolen labcoats and return them to the lockers where they found them, and then slip back into the hallway.

He's not sure how she does it, but Beth seems to know exactly how to get back to the lobby without encountering anyone. From there it's simple to take the elevator up to the fourth floor and return to their room.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind them, Daryl checks the bedroom for bugs again. After a moment's confused hesitation Beth does the same, and he reminds himself that despite how good she is at her job, she's still a rookie.

Once they confirm the room is still clear, Beth grabs a notepad from the side table and flops onto the freshly made bed. Her ponytail spills over her shoulder and into her face on one side as she concentrates on the paper in front of her, drawing long lines at first and then filling them in with smaller strokes.

"This is what I remember of the schematic I saw earlier," she says, snapping Daryl out of staring at her.

The way she's lying on her stomach and propped up on her elbows only gives him room to sit on the side of the bed next to her to even see what she's drawing. It's a pretty decent rendering of the exterior of the Grande Woodbury Hotel, which she's starting to label with floors and then the underground levels. Once she's done with that, she tears off the top page and starts with individual floor plans.

It really shouldn't surprise him that she's good at this, too - her sketches are easy to understand and very detailed for how quickly she's making them. He wonders again how she managed to see schematics for the hotel at all, but she's evaded the question so far and he doesn't feel like pressing it. Lord knows she could just bat those big blue eyes and change the subject, and he'd lose his train of thought anyway.

"You see anythin' about an armory?" Daryl asks gruffly.

"I think they're storin' all the weapons for the expo in a separate building," she says without looking up from her work. "And there wasn't an armory on any of the floorplans I saw. Whatever firepower they've got for security personnel is scattered."

Daryl leans back a little, chewing on his thumb as he studies the pages spread in front of them. "What about the parking deck?"

"Here." Beth taps lightly on the overall layout of the hotel, showing that the parking deck is actually the entire eastern wing. "It connects through the front lobby and two of the service entrances. I have no idea where our SUV is parked, though."

"We're gonna need a vehicle," he replies. "No way those prisoners can make it all the way back to base on foot."

"It's not exactly like we can just walk them through the lobby to get to the car," Beth says. She's finished all her sketches now, and has arranged them in order on the bedspread.

Daryl picks up her drawing of the Basement's floorplan. "We don't have to walk 'em through the lobby," he says, considering all the exits and possible routes. "Just gotta get outside."

It takes at least an hour to settle on a plan. Daryl's suggestion is to split up, one of them get the car and bring it to the service entrance while the other breaks out the prisoners. Beth thinks that's a terrible idea, and the look she shoots him makes him briefly question all his years of training and experience as a CIA agent.

"We're better together and you know it," she says like it's final, because it  _is_  final and he  _does_ know it.

They argue through several options and finally agree on a variation of the first - they will both get the car, park it close to the service entrance, and break in from there to retrieve the prisoners. It's not perfect, but Daryl's hopeful that they'll find a cache of weapons somewhere along the way.

It's still only mid-afternoon, so they have hours to wait until the hotel has gone to sleep and they can get to work in the cover of darkness. Now that their attention is no longer focused on solving a problem, Daryl shifts uncomfortably away from Beth. She's gathering up all the drawings into a tidy pile, but her sweater has slipped off one shoulder and the way her neck curves into her collarbone is kinda making him jumpy.

"You good with these?" she asks, tilting the sketches toward him.

"Mhm," he nods without really making eye contact.

"Got a lighter?"

He doesn't really smoke much anymore, but lighters are handy and inconspicuous, so he always carries one with a pack of cigs on ops. He fishes it out of his pocket and hands it over, asking, "Want me to disable the smoke detector?"

"No, I'll open the bathroom window," she replies as she takes the lighter. "Do you think the pages will scorch the sink?"

"Nah. Toothpaste'll get it out of they do, though."

She nods, satisfied, and disappears into the bathroom to burn the evidence of their plans. Daryl flops back onto the bed and rubs his eyes, a little overwhelmed with the progression of the day. A huge part of him wants to fly into action now and get those prisoners out of whatever hellhole the Governor has them in, but he knows it's wiser to wait until much later that night when they stand a better chance of escaping undetected.

He can hear the tap coming on in the bathroom and he's just about to ask if everything is alright when there is a sharp double-rap on the door. Instantly, his sense crackle and he whistles, low, to alert Beth as he eases off the bed. The water shuts off and she reappears immediately, gesturing to herself and then the door as if to ask if she should answer it. He waves her away and reaches for the knob, muscles taut.

But it's not a tactical team on the other side, like he'd been half-expecting. It's just a butler, bearing a small silver platter with a thick, cream-colored envelope on it.

"Message for Mr. and Mrs. Jones," the butler says, and extends the platter forward.

Daryl takes the envelope hesitantly. The butler doesn't wait for any verbal confirmation, just bows and turns on his heel to walk away.

"What is it?" Beth asks as Daryl shuts the door and turns the envelope over.

"The hell if I know," he replies, handing it off to her. The expensive paper alone makes him feel filthy in comparison, and he stalks to the other side of the room under the pretense of getting something out of his luggage when in reality he just needs something to do with his hands.

She breaks the seal and pulls out a handwritten note. "It's an invitation," she says, then her eyes flicker up to look at him. "From the Governor."

He tenses. "For what?"

"A dinner party tonight," Beth replies as she peruses the flowing script on the page. "In one of the private dining halls downstairs. Do you think we should go?" She sounds casual, but there's a little quaver at the end of the question that betrays her.

"If we don't, he'll think somethin's off," Daryl says grudgingly. "Better go and act like everythin' is fine. We can't start the plan until later anyway."

"Okay," Beth says with a curt nod, but more to herself than at him. "I guess I better start curling my hair, then."

She marches resolutely into the bathroom, and he watches her go with an uneasy feeling in his gut. There could be any number of reasons why the Governor invited them to a dinner party, not least of which might be their interaction on the shooting ranges that morning. But that doesn't change the fact that the Governor is a powerful, dangerous man, and attracting his attention is not ideal.

But declining the invitation would attract  _more_  attention, so Daryl sighs and pulls out another suit to wear that night.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking with this fic despite my ridiculously slow updates :)
> 
> a quick recap of what happened last time: beth and daryl devise a cunning plan to help the prisoners escape, but before they can put it into action they receive an invitation to a formal dinner party with the Governor.

Daryl twists the wedding band around his fourth finger, gaze flickering to the bathroom door for what feels like the hundredth time that evening. After curling her hair earlier, Beth had stretched out on the bed for a nap, but he had declined her suggestion that he do the same despite their busy night ahead. He was too restless to settle, so instead he gnawed his fingernails to the quick and tried not to move around enough to wake her.

Judging by her breathing, though, she hadn't actually fallen asleep, and after an hour she had gotten up and gathered her things to change for the dinner party. Then she'd disappeared into the bathroom again, and she hasn't reappeared since. Daryl has already changed into his suit and clumsily fixed his hair, and now he's half-wondering if this is what it would really feel like to be married to her and wait for her to get ready. He shakes the thought away.

The sunset is waning drowsily through the windows by the time the bathroom door finally opens and Beth steps through. Just the sight of her is enough to bring a hot flush to his face, because she is  _so damn beautiful_  and he's not really sure where to look. Her dress is black and shimmering, with a slit up one side that floats open when she walks. The dark fabric makes her golden hair even more striking, and her eyes are dusky with kohl. He's heard the name for it - smoky eye or some shit like that, which makes no sense to him because getting smoke in your eyes makes them red and watery.

"You-" His voice cracks like a pubescent boy and he clears his throat to cover it. "You got the flash drive?"

She reaches up to lightly touch the back of her head. "I braided it into my hair."

"You can do that?" he asks, dumbstruck. By this point, Beth could tell him that she's a nuclear physicist and he'd believe it.

"That's why it's so big. It's full of secrets," she says with a grin that makes his chest constrict, until he realizes that she's looking at him like she expects him to understand a joke. He just shrugs defensively, and her face goes incredulous. "Looks like we're havin' a movie night when we get back to base."

She goes to the vanity at the other end of the room and sits down so that she can put her earrings on. He sees then that her dress is mostly backless, and what  _does_ cover the smooth expanse of her pale skin is scalloped black lace. He almost swallows his tongue.

"You look nice," she says to him through her reflection in the mirror as she fiddles with her earrings.

He's pretty sure this is when he should tell her how jaw-droppingly gorgeous she is, but all that comes out of his mouth is, "you too," and he hates that he's not brave enough to say more. But maybe it's enough for her, because she lights up with a glowing smile and turns her eyes downward in a way that kinda makes him feel like he's on fire.

"We should go," she says, grabbing her clutch as she stands up. She turns to face him, only to give him an appraising look. "Mind if I fix your hair?"

Part of him loathes that he needs the warning, and part of him swells with gratitude that she remembers. He reflexively drags a hand through it, though, trying to deflect whatever this confusing emotional reaction is. "What's the matter with it?"

"You're makin' it worse," she says, but she's so natural about it that he doesn't clam up like it's criticism. Her hand is up, poised like a Disney princess, but she doesn't move toward him without permission. He finally stills and drops his own hand, and she reaches out to comb through a tangle with silvery fingers. "S'just a little mussed. There. Now you're perfect."

"Dunno about that," he grumbles under his breath.

Beth slips her hand into his and asks, "Shall we?"

He glances down at their interlaced fingers, her skin cool and natural against his own. For a split second he feels like he's missing something until he realizes that he's not spooked by the proximity. Damn if Beth Greene isn't seeping into his periphery, uninvited but definitely not unwelcome.

It seems like all their walks are quiet, and this one is no different. Beth spares him a few words of direction as they make their way downstairs to the private dining room off the lobby, but otherwise they don't speak until they're outside the door. Daryl fidgets with his tie (it feels like it's choking him) as Beth hands their invitation to one of the footmen.

"Please go right in, Mr. and Mrs. Jones," the footman says, opening the richly stained oak door for them.

There's a pleasant hum of chatter in the room beyond, and Daryl steps through the door with Beth on his arm to see at least forty-five people milling around a long, beautifully set table. A familiar pang of discomfort pulses through him, but he can sense Beth's soft intake of breath beside him as she charges up for the social interaction. He's grateful that he can let her lead this dance instead of him having to talk the whole evening without her.

For a split second after entering, it's unclear what they're supposed to do. But almost immediately, a big, congenial voice welcomes them. "Devon, Blaire! You don't mind if I drop the formalities, do you? I'm so pleased that you could make it to our little gathering tonight." The Governor pushes through the crowd to greet them, a relaxed smile on his face. The noise level doesn't drop in the room, but something subtly shifts and Daryl's instincts prickle even though he can't put a finger on it.

"Thank you  _so_  much for the invitation," Beth is saying, all sparkling eyes and charm. If she's noticed the change, she's not letting on. "What a beautiful party. Isn't it, babe?" She leans into Daryl, giggling.

If they were actually partners, he would have been able to read any signals she might have been telegraphing with her touch. A shared history both on active ops and outside the field makes unspoken communication a second language for paired agents, but right now he feels blind. If she's trying to tell him something, he's not picking it up.

"Yeah," he responds to her question then addresses the Governor by extended his hand for a handshake. "Pleasure to see you again."

"Likewise," the Governor says, taking his hand in a bone-crushing grasp that is both a threat and a challenge. Daryl tightens his own grip with the shadow of a smirk, because two can play that game and this is one social nicety that he's better at than Beth.

Except she's not stupid, because she notices the powerplay between the two men almost immediately. Her smile thins out a little bit, and she drops Daryl's arm to take the Governor's.

"Won't you show us to our seats?" she asks sweetly, turning her big eyes up to the Governor.

Daryl knows his handshake is beyond crushing by now, but he can't seem to ease up even though Beth obviously wants to separate them. It's the Governor who lets go first, so that he can put his hand over Beth's in the crook of his elbow.

"Right this way," he says with a charming grin for Beth that fades into a brief glare at Daryl as the Governor turns away to lead Beth toward the table. Daryl takes a second to scan the room again, trying to pinpoint whatever unsettled him a moment ago. But everyone is talking amongst themselves in little knots of conversation and he can't find anything particularly amiss. Still, that doesn't mean he has to let his guard down. He squares his shoulders and follows Beth.

She's still on the Governor's arm, listening to him as he gestures around the room. They're standing at the head of the table, where Beth's seat is obviously right next to the Governor's. Daryl glances down at the place settings and sees delicately scripted name cards above the plates. Sure enough, there's  _Blaire Jones_  to the right of the head seat, but Daryl doesn't immediately see his cover name. The Governor notices his pause, and offers a him smile that Daryl doesn't like.

"You'll find your seat on that side," the Governor says, nodding toward the opposite side of the table.

That feeling of something being off has come back, and Daryl can feel Beth's and the Governor's full attention on him as he goes around the table. He skips down a couple name cards, and almost misses his.

Because it's written as  _Daryl Dixon_.

He explodes into action, grabbing a knife off the table and shoving a chair aside so he can lunge across at the Governor. He's got one knee planted on the table before the haze of red clears and he realizes that the Governor has one arm wrapped around Beth's neck, and the other holding a gun pressed against her temple. The room has gone completely silent, and over half the dinner party guests have drawn weapons. This was all a set-up, an elegant trap designed to be as showy as it is effective, and they walked right into it.

Daryl locks eyes with Beth, his chest heaving in fear and adrenaline. Her hands are up at her throat to get a little relief from the Governor's tight grip, but her gaze is calm and steady on Daryl.

"You can put that knife back where you got it," the Governor says, the gloating undertone unmistakable in his voice.

Daryl doesn't break eye contact with Beth as he opens his fingers until he's just holding the hilt against his palm with his thumb, and eases the knife slowly down onto the table. He hates surrendering the weapon, but there are others within easy reach and hell only knows how trigger-happy the Governor is. He doesn't relax out of a defensive posture though - keeps his knees bent a little, stays ready to move if he has the slightest opportunity.

"Let her go," he rasps, throat like ashes and dust.

"That's not how this works," the Governor replies. He shifts his hold so that his hand instead of his arm is on Beth's windpipe, and Daryl desperately wonders how much of Shane's close-quarters combat training stuck with her.

"Aren't you gonna ask me how I found out that a rogue intelligence agent infiltrated my hotel?" the Governor continues.

"Figured you'd tell me," Daryl replies. He hates how theatrical this is, with the entire room full of the Governor's cronies watching. It's not even about how he and Beth are impossibly outnumbered, but he  _hates_  an audience.

"It would be easier to show you by introducing you to my chief of security," the Governor smirks, and the person that pushes past a couple of heavies makes Daryl physically stagger back a step even though no one touches him.

It's Merle, who is supposed to be dead.

"Miss me, baby brother?" he says, raising his hands with a shit-eating grin that is so  _Merle_.

_Yes,_  Daryl thinks, but also,  _no._  He had missed his brother's presence but not his influence, not the kind of man Daryl became when they were together. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't felt a guilty glimmer of relief when he heard Merle went down in a bad drug deal four years ago.

But now he just feels like he's been punched in the gut. Merle's not waiting for an answer, though - just keeps talking like this isn't the worst bind that Daryl's ever been in.

"That's quite a fancy frock you're wearing, Darylina," he smirks. "You and me, we never got so gussied up for a job. But then, your new partner-in-crime is much prettier than ole Merle."

" _Don't_ ," Daryl growls when his brother reaches for Beth's chin.

"That's enough, Merle," the Governor says. "You can go."

For a split second it looks like Merle will refuse, either because he isn't done gloating or because he just isn't ready to leave Daryl. But the moment passes almost immediately, and he shrugs. "You got it, boss," he says. He makes his way out of the room, and when he passes Daryl he bumps into his shoulder and says, "stay sharp" so low that Daryl almost misses it.

_What the hell?_  is all he can process as the door clicks shut behind his brother.

"Imagine my surprise when Merle told me this afternoon that my charming guests are actually freelance intel mercenaries," the Governor says, clearly pleased to have the spotlight back. "If it's any consolation, he tried to protect you at first. But ultimately his loyalty to me won out, and he told me all about your history as guns for hire."

It's slowly dawning on Daryl that neither Merle nor the Governor know the full story - they both just think that he and Beth are independent contractors, not full-blown CIA agents. His gaze flickers back to Beth, hoping she has figured it out too. She hasn't really moved much, but her eyes are taking inventory of the room and everyone in it.

The Governor hasn't stopped talking. "Of course, he couldn't tell me who you're working for or how you got your cover identities past my security. He suggested that your lady friend might have some answers," he says, fingertips caressing Beth's throat. Daryl's pulse scatters frantically as she tenses under the touch. "How about it, Blaire? But that's not your real name, is it?"

"No, it's not," she replies, and in one fluid motion she uses one hand to shove his gun away from her temple and the other arm to bring her elbow up into his nose. It happens too fast for anyone to really react, and by the time anyone else has drawn a weapon, Beth has disarmed the Governor and turned his gun on him. She looks like a Valkyrie, standing there in her dark dress with her golden hair falling around her face.

The Governor puts a hand up to his face and Daryl can tell his nose, which is streaming blood, is broken. "You shouldn't have done that." He glowers at Beth before glancing toward Daryl and nodding in his direction. Three guards immediately draw their handguns on him while another steps closer to land a vicious right hook just below Daryl's ribcage. His attention had been so centered on Beth that the blow catches him off guard, but the explosion of pain brings his senses into sharp focus and he reacts on instinct.

He takes down the first guard with a single uppercut to the jaw, but within seconds four or five of them have piled on to hold him down. Daryl rips his arm away to get in one more punch before they force him to his knees. One of them, an ugly guy with a scar on his cheek, kicks him in the chest so forcefully that it knocks the wind out of him, followed immediately by someone else punching him once and then twice so that his head snaps back and forth.

" _Stop_." Beth's voice cuts through the heavy ringing in his ears.

She has released her active hold on the handgun and is offering it, grip-first, to the Governor. He takes it with a calculating look, and it's clear that he underestimated her before and will not make the same mistake again. She lifts her chin, defiant even in surrender - until the Governor backhands her across the face so hard it sends her sprawling.

Snarling, Daryl surges up just as she catches her fall with her forearms. He drags the man hanging onto one of his arms closer and lands a kick on his kneecap right where he knows it will break, and sure enough the man falls away with a yell. Now that he has an arm free again, Daryl slams his elbow back into the guy behind him and then twists to get some leverage on the others trying to hold him down.

But by then, more guards have moved in and he's overwhelmed again. Somebody punches the small of his back and he collapses back to his knees, breathless. He looks to Beth, and she shakes her head almost imperceptibly. She's pushed herself up into a sitting position, that dark dress pooling around her, and she mostly just looks pissed instead of seriously hurt. Daryl's blood is still roaring in his ears, partly from rage and partly from being struck so many times, but he eases up his resistance when he notices that about four guards have their guns trained on her.

"You two are stubborn, and I respect that," the Governor drawls, taking out a kerchief to wipe the blood from his face. "And in the end, it doesn't matter who you're workin' for. Hell, maybe you're workin' for yourselves. That won't change where you're headed after this little tête-à-tête."

"And where's that?" Beth asks, still on-mission, still wheedling information out of the Governor.

"I'm in the business of weapons trading," he replies, "and what better weapon than a biomedical one? This weekend isn't just an expo, it's an auction. And if I want to get a fair price for the sleepwalker serum, I'll need to have a demonstration of its effects. Two traitors sound like the perfect examples."

It takes a second for all the pieces to fall into place in Daryl's mind. Once it clicks, he feels sick to his stomach as a fresh swell of adrenaline floods his system. There's no way in  _hell_  he's letting the Governor's doctors pump some superdrug into him so that he can hurt Beth for the entertainment of others.

"I hope y'all are ready for your big debut in the morning." The Governor smiles at them, a feral smile still red with blood on his teeth.

And Daryl snaps like the caged animal he is, raging against his captors with a savage strength. He ducks his head and plows into the closest guard with his shoulder, and they all go down in a pile. The confusion gives him enough leverage to roll on top of somebody and just start beating the everloving shit out of them, and he just feels the guy's cheekbone crack under his fist when something slams into the back of Daryl's head and everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise!! raise your hand if you saw any of this coming 
> 
> p.s. the movie that beth references near the beginning is mean girls. can u even imagine daryl watching that omg


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry it's been ages! thanks for sticking around. :)
> 
> a quick recap of what happened last time: beth and daryl go to the dinner party, which turned out to be an ambush by the Governor. daryl desperately attempts to break free, but he is knocked unconscious. :(

Daryl wakes to the sound of a heavy door slamming shut.

_Damn_ , his head hurts.

He slowly realizes that he's lying down, and he jerks upright with a start. He's immediately hit with a roiling wave of nausea that doubles him over, so he screws his eyes shut until the feeling eases. When he blinks them open, Beth's worried face swims into his vision.

"Hey," she says.

"How long was I out?" he slurs, struggling to go upright again. Beth catches his arm as he wavers, and he's too unsteady to protest.

"Hey," she says. " _Sit_."

He slumps back onto his haunches with his knees drawn up to his chest. The lights in the room seem so bright, but he's starting to get his bearings. They're not in the dining hall anymore - now they're in a smaller, nondescript room with white walls and a tile floor. "Where…?" he tries to ask, but it comes out more like a groan.

"We're in the Basement now," Beth says as she kneels in front of him and holds up her index finger. "They took us down here pretty quick. You were unconscious for just over eight minutes. Keep your head still and follow my finger with just your eyes."

He does as she asks, tracking her small hands as she traces figure eights in the air. He even submits when she looks closely into his eyes with a worried crinkle between her brows. It's hard to maintain the eye contact, but he knows she's checking him for a concussion.

"How old are you?" she asks.

"Thirty-four," he says.

"And what year is it now?"

"Twenty fifteen."

"Who is the president of the United States?"

By now, his brain is starting to clear and the room has stopped spinning. He's been concussed before, and he's pretty sure he's okay this time. "Bugs Bunny?"

"That's not funny, Daryl," she glares, but he can see the tension ebbing out of her shoulders and she's biting back a grin. For a split second, he's ridiculously, impossibly pleased with himself for making her smile despite their situation. "How's your head?" she asks.

"Gettin' better," he answers honestly, then looks away. "How's yours?"

She looks a little surprised, tentatively reaching up to touch the area around her left eye. It has started to turn purple where the Governor struck her. "I'll live." She shifts away a little so that she can lean against the wall.

There's a pause that Daryl doesn't like, so he pushes himself up and starts casing the room. It's probably about twelve by twelve and completely empty except for one grey door. It looks a lot like the place that Andrea and the rest of the prisoners were in, except this room doesn't have the one-way observation window.

"I didn't know you have a brother," Beth says quietly.

It catches him off guard and he freezes. That blow to the head must have been harder than he thought; he'd momentarily forgotten that Merle isn't a ghost anymore.

"Yeah," he grunts. He really doesn't owe her an explanation, so it almost surprises him when he keeps talking. "Thought he died about four years back. Now I dunno what happened."

"Were you two close?" Her question comes out in a whisper, and she's got to be thinking of her own family. It's pretty common knowledge that the two Greene girls are thick as thieves - Beth probably can't even fathom the kind of betrayal that Merle committed by exposing them. A part of Daryl flares up in irritation, but he mostly just feels sad.

"We worked together," he replies. "That's why he thinks you and me are freelancers, 'cause that's what we did. Mostly shit jobs." He doesn't even have to look at her to know that she's got a confused wrinkle between her eyebrows.

"Then how did you start workin' with the CIA?" she asks.

"Me and Merle, we took a job that got us on the radar in a bad way. Ended up in federal prison. I thought I was gonna rot in that cell until I was a corpse, but this bigshot CIA agent must have heard about Merle's connections with a drug ring. He came down and offered us provisional posts as criminal informants if we'd feed him intel from the inside. Said he's put us down like dogs if we double-crossed him."

"Rick said that?" Beth says.

"Nah." Daryl shakes his head. "Wasn't Rick in the beginnin'. Shane brought us on."

He's pretty sure she was about two-thirds of the way through training when all the shit started going down with Shane a couple years after Daryl joined, but she has to at least know the reader's digest version even if she wasn't directly involved in the events. Still, if she's surprised by the connection between them, she doesn't let on.

"So what happened?" she asks. "Did Merle double-cross him?"

"Wanted to," Daryl says. "Said the money was better if we stayed free agents. I told him he was a simple-minded piece of shit for considerin' it. He agreed to stay on the level for awhile, until he went to a drug deal negotiation without me. The whole thing turned into a firefight and I thought that was the end of Merle. Guess he made it out somehow."

"And now he's here," Beth whispers, mostly to herself.

"Yeah," Daryl mutters. He feels a little sick to his stomach, telling her about his past like that. She probably thinks he's the scum of the earth - not that she's wrong. But he can't take the words back now.

"And you joined the CIA," she says, looking him directly in the eyes again.

"Yeah," he says. "Rick convinced me to go through the academy. Said I had to learn all the extras if I wanted to be an agent."

"Like dancin'," Beth grins.

He kinda smiles, and ducks his head to hide it. Hell if he knows how she does it, but she's made him feel a little more at ease again. At least, as easy as somebody can feel while trapped in the underground lair of a supervillain.

"You got any ideas about how to get out of here?" he asks gruffly, because he would really rather process whatever she's got him feeling once they're both safely back at headquarters.

"Wait," she says, her her head cocked to one side with a crinkle between her brows. "Do you hear that?"

He stills for a moment, then softly treads to the other side of the room. Sure enough, there's a rhythmic  _tap tap tap_  through the wall. He jerks his head to gesture Beth over, still listening carefully.

_taptaptap - tap, tap, tap - taptaptap_

"It's S.O.S.," Beth whispers, eyes like saucers as she kneels to get on a better level with where the sound seems to be coming from. She raps against the wall a couple times with her knuckles and then asks, "Is someone there?"

There's a pause, and for a second Daryl wonders if this is some weird mind-game the Governor is playing with them. But then, tentatively and muffled through the sheetrock, "Who is this?"

"You first," he growls, loud enough to carry into the other room, although he's already beginning to suspect who's on the other side.

Another pause and what sounds like a low conversation, but it's impossible to make out the words. After a moment, the voice replies, "My name is Andrea. We heard voices through the wall."

Beth's gaze shoots up to meet Daryl's, but he's too busy trying to figure out the best way to handle this. It's been years since he's spoken with Andrea and that was way back in the early days of his new life as a CIA recruit. She probably remembers him more as Merle's shitty brother than an ally. Plus, she was locked up with three others earlier today, and he has no idea what kind of people they are. One of them could be cooperating with the Governor for all he knows.

"It's nice to meet you, Andrea," he says, choosing his words carefully. "My name's Daryl Dixon. This is my partner, Beth."

Andrea doesn't say anything for a second, and he hopes he phrased everything obliquely enough that she can understand his meaning without him giving away too much. There's no way she hasn't recognized his name.

"Hello, Daryl, Beth," she replies after a moment.

"Are you alone?" Beth breaks in.

"No," Andrea says. "There's four of us. Michonne was brought here with me six days ago, and Sasha and Tyreese came a day after that."

"Do you know why you're being held?" Beth asks.

"I think Philip is planning to do some kind of exhibition, and we're the test subjects for it."

"Congratulations," Daryl says grimly. "You just got bumped down the guest list."

"Philip?" Beth repeats. "Do you mean the Governor?"

"Yes, Philip Blake. Michonne and I have been investigating him for awhile, but he made us last week and locked us up here. I take it that's what happened to you?"

"Just about," Beth says. "But it sounds like you have more intel than we did - we never even got his name."

"Who're y'all workin' for?" Daryl asks suspiciously. No wonder the Governor immediately assumed that he and Beth were free agents - he's already been infiltrated by at least one pair of them.

"For me," a new voice says. It's feminine, but huskier than Andrea's. "The Governor killed my husband and my brother in one of his experiments, and I intend to expose him."

"Michonne and I have been working together for a couple months now," Andrea continues.

"What about the other two?" Daryl asks.

"They were employees of the hotel," Andrea says. "It seems like the Governor doesn't just target his enemies, he also abducts people without anyone to miss them. Sasha and Tyreese don't have any other family left."

"We have to get this intel back to Rick," Beth whispers to him.

"No shit," he grumbles. Nevermind that the Governor is planning to inject them with whatever serum made his previous test subjects go insane - Beth is more worried about completing the mission.

"If we can just get out of this room, we can stick with the original plan," she says. "What if I scream for help and say you haven't woken up? Then we take out the guard when he comes in."

He can hardly believe what he's hearing. She's been so capable and well-trained for the whole op, and now this is coming out her mouth? There must be some kind of ugly look on his face, because Beth's brows crinkle in response and she says, "What? It works in the movies all the time."

"That ain't gonna work here," Daryl says.

"You got a better idea?" she asks.

He doesn't, but he's not about to admit it. Her tone has his hackles up and God knows he's never backed down from a fight. "Just about  _any_  idea would be better than that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Beth whirls on him, some of her golden hair falling from her updo into curls at her shoulders and neck, and he  _hates_  that it distracts him so much.

"It means you ain't a kid playin' dress up." He's all teeth and claws now, because it's easier to snarl than to play nice. "This ain't no Spy Kids movie!"

"Yeah, you've reminded me of that plenty," she replies. "At least I'm tryin' to figure a way out of this hellhole!"

"Fine," he says, throwing a hand up dismissively. "You wanna scream for help, screw over our chances of actually gettin' outta here quiet, go ahead. I ain't gonna save your ass when it blows up in your face, though."

"Screw you, Daryl," she says, and gives him the finger.

" _Woooo_ ," a familiar voice croons, and both Daryl and Beth whip around to see Merle framed in the open doorway. "Looks like I'm interruptin' somethin'  _good_. I can come back later of y'all wanna finish whatever you started." He thrusts his pelvis obscenely.

"The hell is this, Merle?" Daryl growls. "You here to gloat some more?"

"Where's the love, little brother?" Merle says, putting a hand over his heart in exaggerated pain.

"Shut up," Daryl says. He's caught up in a riptide of emotions - rage and confusion and sick fear all vying for dominance - and he wants to lunge for his brother to beat an apology out of him. But his agent instincts are kicking in, too, and they have no idea what's right outside the door, let alone what Merle's intentions are.

"Relax, Darylina," Merle drawls with that same old shit-eating grin on his face. "It's time to steal a rowboat. This is the Great Escape."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there's about three chapters left on this ole fic, and i have a proposition for y'all. it just didn't seem realistic to have a satisfying romance evolve out of a single mission... so why not have more than one? my idea is to turn this into an undercover bethyl series, where each mission happens to fit a common AU trope. would y'all be interested in that?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a quick recap of what happened last time: daryl and beth are captured by the governor and locked up in the basement, but merle has arrived at the last minute.

There is a pulse of disbelief in the room at Merle's words. Daryl doesn't know what to think, and a quick glance at Beth tells him that she doesn't either. Her eyes meet his and he feels choked by his uncertainty - there's too many variables, and he knows that she's letting him make the decision about whether or not to trust Merle.

"What's the hold-up?" his brother says, a shadow of hurt crossing his face. "It ain't like I got all day to bust y'all out."

"We're not leavin' without them," Beth pipes up, which only draws Merle's attention to her.

"And who might that be, sugar tits?" he asks with a leering smile, moving toward her a couple paces.

"You know damn well who," Daryl cuts in, both verbally and physically as he shifts into the space between his brother and Beth.

Merle's expression sours at Daryl's implied barrier. "You mean those bitches that tried to infil last week?"

"And the other two," Beth says. She's behind him so Daryl can't see her, but he'd bet any money that those big blue eyes are flashing steel and fire.

"Listen, blondie," Merle drawls, putting his hands up defensively. "We got about twelve minutes left before the guard duty switches over and the boss man catches wind of this little liaison. We  _don't_  got time to sit here takin' the piss about a couple pieces of shit that were dumb enough to get caught. This ain't a negotiation."

"No, it's not," Beth snaps, brushing past Daryl to get right in Merle's face. Even in her ridiculously tall heels she's still a couple inches shorter than him, but a shadow of uneasiness still crosses Merle's features. "This isn't a negotiation, because you're either gonna help us or you're gonna get the  _hell_  out of our way."

_Damn_ , Daryl thinks.

" _Hoooo_ ," Merle whistles, switching his attention over to him. "You got a feisty little piece of tail here, baby brother. You'd best control your woman before she gets you into trouble."

He's not sure what it is, but something in Daryl snaps. He puts his head down and lunges for Merle, shoulder-first. They go down in a heap with a snarl and a grunt between them, and somehow Daryl gets the upper hand for long enough to land two solid blows to his face.

But his brother has always been a tougher brawler than him. Merle drives a left hook into his side, right where his ribs are bruised from earlier in the dining room, and pain blossoms across Daryl's vision as he instinctively lurches away. It gives Merle enough of a window to get to his feet and grab a fistful of Daryl's collar, pinning him against the wall.

"You really wanna do this, boy?" He has the upper hand in both height and leverage, and he uses it to roughly jostle Daryl for good measure, one fist poised to land a blow.

They both hear the sound of a gun being racked, and then Beth's calm voice. "Let him go." She's got a Glock trained on Merle's head, and she's far enough across the room that he can't reach out to disarm her.

"You got some light fingers, dollface," Merle croons, daring to look impressed.

"You shouldn't holster your gun in the back of your waistband," Beth says evenly. "Let him go."

Daryl is still heaving for air, and he half-wonders if the beating from before actually cracked one of his ribs enough to puncture a lung. Merle releases his collar with an extra shove, and Daryl drags himself to his feet.

Beth hasn't relaxed her aim. "What was your exfil strategy?" she asks.

"Was gonna walk you out," Merle says after a sullen pause. "Stay out of the main areas just in case, say I was transferrin' you if anyone asked. But that ain't gonna work if you wanna bring all your little friends, too."

Her eyes flicker to Daryl for a second, and he can see that she's at a loss despite the temporary advantage of a gun in her hands. They don't have time to untangle the mess they're in - but Merle's presence could actually make their original plan easier.

"You got access to the parking deck?" Daryl asks.

"Of course I do," Merle says like it's the stupidest question in the world.

Daryl ignores the attitude. "You okay with this?" he asks Beth. He wouldn't fault her for saying no. He's not really sure if  _he_ trusts Merle, but his brother is willing to throw away what has to be a sweet gig working for the Governor. That's got to count for something.

"Yeah," Beth nods. Maybe they aren't as out of sync as Daryl had thought - she immediately picked up the full implication of his question about how to adjust the plan.

"Okay with  _what_?" Merle asks, clearly irritated to be out of the loop.

"You're gonna get a big van, big enough for all of us," Daryl says. "You're gonna drive it to the road and wait for us. Me and Beth'll get the others and meet you there."

"Puts a bad taste in my mouth, takin' orders from my baby brother," Merle says. Daryl knows it's just an act to make sure he knows that at the end of the day,  _Merle_  is in charge. Typical older brother shit.

"Your other option is that we tie you up and leave you here for the Governor to find," Beth says, then smiles innocently at Merle's shocked look. "Not a negotiation, remember?"

"Where'd you find this bitch?" Merle snaps at Daryl.

"Shut up," Daryl growls. "You gonna help or what?"

"Fine," Merle spits out. "There's a backroad that butts up to the woods at the west end of the property. It'll be a long break from the house without cover, but once you're in the trees the patrols ain't worth a damn. Follow the creek away from the hotel and it'll hit the road. I'll wait there for you."

"Okay," Beth nods, her resolve hardening now that they have a solid plan again.

"I don't 'spose you'll give me my gun back," Merle asks dryly.

"Somethin' tells me you'll pick up another," she replies. "Any tips for avoidin' the guards in the building?"

"I dismissed the guards on this floor, but there's a shift change in-" Merle looks at his watch, "nine minutes. Prob'ly gonna raise hell when they see you're out."

"Let's get movin' then," Daryl says.

Merle reaches into his pocket and tosses a set of keys to him. "These'll prob'ly help smooth the path for you."

"Thanks," Beth says.

"If y'all get caught because you're tryin' to rescue those four dumbasses, I ain't breakin' you out again," Merle says as he heads for the door. "And if I don't see you down past the creek in fifteen minutes, I'm gone." He throws the deadline over his shoulder as parting shot as he leaves.

"I wouldn't have actually tied him up and left him for the Governor," Beth says apologetically once Merle is gone.

"I might've," Daryl grunts, then nods to the door. "We gotta move."

"We passed the door to that observation room when they brought us down here," Beth says as she heads for the hall. She holds out the gun to him. "I'll trade you."

"You're doin' just fine with it," Daryl says, figuring he's better at hand-to-hand than Beth if it really comes down to it.

"I don't have anywhere to put it," Beth replies with a shrug, and she's right. Her dark silken dress is still pretty much none the worse for wear despite their rough evening, but it certainly doesn't allow her to holster a gun anywhere. He hands over the keys in exchange for the gun.

"C'mon," he says, even though she's in the lead. He was unconscious on the way in, so she has a better sense of direction for the time being.

"I think it's this way," she whispers once they're in the hallway, gesturing to the right.

He just nods her on. Even if Merle relieved all the guards, someone might notice the absence and question it. Better to be quiet and fast, just in case.

She pads ahead of him, somehow almost silent in her heels. When hallway reaches a crossroads, she pulls up short and gestures that she'll clear right while he checks left. But there's nobody there, and they continue about halfway in a new direction before Beth stops in front of a door.

"This it?" Daryl asks, because it looks exactly like every other door they've seen in this god-forsaken Basement.

"Yeah," she replies as she tries the knob, which is of course locked. She examines the set of keys for a second before picking one. Somehow it's a perfect fit, and a second later the door swings open to reveal four shocked faces.

"What's going on?" Andrea asks, recovering first.

"Time to go," Daryl replies.

"Not without what we came for," Michonne says as she struggles to her feet. She's got a makeshift bandage wrapped around her thigh, probably over a gunshot or knife wound.

"You're hurt, Miche," Andrea protests. "Live to fight another day, alright?"

"We've got enough intel to put the Governor in a deep, dark hole forever," Beth says, reaching up to tuck a stray strand back into her updo. Daryl had forgotten that she still had the flash drive with all the intel on the superdrug braided into her golden hair. "Please let us get you out to safety."

"You guys Feds?" the man asks. Tyreese, if Daryl remembers his name correctly.

"CIA," Daryl replies. All this chatter is making his skin crawl - they need to  _go_. "Gotta problem with that?"

"Hang on," Andrea interrupts. " _You're_  CIA?"

"Joined up about the time you left," Daryl says.

"Do you know these people?" Michonne asks.

Andrea is looking at Beth more closely. "Aren't you Hershel Greene's daughter?"

"Listen, we've got time for introductions later," Beth says firmly. "Right now, we have a limited window to get out and we've gotta work together to do that."

"She's right," the third woman - Sasha - says. "You're in no shape to go after the Governor like this, Michonne. You'd be dead before you even got close."

"Bus is leavin' in five seconds," Daryl says, nudging Beth toward the door in the hopes that it will prompt everybody else to get moving, too. It kinda works, too - Tyreese and Sasha both follow.

Beth lets him move her a couple steps, but her attention doesn't waver from the prisoners, Michonne in particular. "We know about the sleepwalker serum," she says, her voice serious and soothing at the same time. "We're not gonna let the Governor hurt anyone else. But we have to get this intel back to base, and your testimonies are a part of that now. You'll do more good by leavin' than by stayin'."

There's a pause as Michonne weighs her words, and for a second Daryl considers taking the options away by raising the gun and forcing them to safety at gunpoint. But then Michonne nods reluctantly, and that's all it takes for Andrea to get moving, too.

"You know the way out of here?" Sasha asks from the doorway.

"Yeah," Daryl says, easing out in the hallway to check if it's clear. "Alright, me and Beth in front to deal with any surprises. Tyreese, stay close to Michonne in case her leg gives out. Andrea, you good with rearguard?"

"Sure," Andrea nods.

"Stay close," he growls at the group, because there's no way in hell he's letting any one of them get caught again.

Beth still has Merle's keys, so she locks the door behind them once they're all out. As she rejoins him at the head of the group to lead them out, she spares a second to flash a brilliant smile up at him. He realizes then that she  _loves_  this, loves helping people against impossible odds - and he loves it too. And maybe, just  _maybe_ , he offers her a small smile in return.

"This way," she whispers, eyes glowing like stars.

Merle was good on his word - there isn't a guard to be seen as they move through the Basement. That doesn't keep Daryl's senses from crackling like livewire at every noise the group makes. He knows they're trying to be quiet, but half of them are untrained civilians and some of their footfalls sound like gunshots.

Still, they get all the way up to ground level without a problem. The keys speed things up considerably, since they don't have to hotwire or pick any locks. Beth has guided them up to what appears to be another service area of the hotel, but it's hard to get a feel for where they are on the overall grounds. They hover in the doorway of the stairwell as Daryl scans the hall beyond.

"What's your plan for exfil?" Andrea asks from the rear, her voice pitched low.

Daryl doesn't answer right away, because he's not sure how they'll react to Merle helping them. A quick glance at Beth tells him that she's wondering the same thing.

"Break from the hotel, get to the woods on the west side of the property," he says. "We got a van waiting there."

"The west end down past the creek?" Michonne asks. "That's a hell of a long break across the lawn."

"It's our best option," Beth answers, "and we only have about four more minutes to figure out the best way to get there."

"Take a left, go out that double door and then keep to the right," Tyreese says. "I worked as a groundskeeper for a couple weeks before the Governor's men put me and Sasha down here. There's good cover along the side of the hotel, but then we'll have to make a run for it."

It's as good a plan as any, so Daryl eases out into the hall. It's unlit and probably unused at this late hour, but he still gestures for everybody to keep quiet as they follow him. Beth uses the keys to unlock the door to the outside, just in case there's an alarm. As they slip outside, Daryl sees that they're at the back of the hotel.

It's almost pitch black out except for a couple small decorative lights that shine upward against the hotel's walls. Daryl thinks that maybe the moon has risen by now, but there's so much cloud coverage that the sky is solid black. The darkness is comforting, and for the first time that night, he lets himself relax a measure.

And then they're flooded with light.

Every exterior light comes on in unison, and Daryl surges into action. "Go!" he hisses, trying to corral the prisoners in the right direction. "We've been made,  _go!_ "

"Stay close to the hotel for as long as possible," Beth orders as the group starts moving.

There are some ornamental bushes that line the hotel's perimeter and provide decent cover. But once they're at the southwest corner of the hotel, they run out of shelter and pause to look at the long expanse of grass before the treeline.

Somewhere around the corner, Daryl can hear the heavy boots of guards coming outside. There's no visual on them yet, but his pulse throbs so fast it almost hurts. There is  _so_  much ground to cover.

He doesn't even allow himself to consider the possibility that Merle isn't waiting for them with a van.

"We gotta go," Beth whispers, and she's right. As shitty as their situation is, if they don't risk the long run to the woods then they'll definitely be caught.

Michonne is the first to move into the open, her footsteps sure despite her limp. Tyreese and Sasha follow, and there's an unspoken shift in positions as Andrea hurries to take point while Beth and Daryl cover the rear. They're moving at a pretty decent pace and not making much noise, but  _god_  Daryl feels naked. He knows they've only got a couple of seconds before they're spotted.

Sure enough, they've made it about a quarter of the way across the wide lawn when there's a hushed  _there they are!_  behind them. Everybody redoubles their speed, sprinting now instead of just running. Daryl spares a glance over his shoulder to see three guards at the corner of the hotel, setting their guns to their shoulders to take aim.

There's a couple whispery cracks that don't completely make sense until the corresponding bullets spray along the ground around his moving feet, and Daryl only has time to think  _damn, their silencers are good_  before he sees Beth go down right in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you didn't think i was gonna let them escape that easily, did you?
> 
> so it sounds like y'all are just as interested in reading this as a series as i am to write it! i'm so excited. any guesses what trope the next story will be? ;)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovelies! i'm so sorry this has taken so long. real life is dumb and hard sometimes. here's an extra long chapter to make up for it!
> 
> a quick recap of what happened last time: daryl, beth, and the four other prisoners are making a run for freedom outside of the hotel when a couple of guards try to stop them. there's gunfire, beth goes down.

Daryl is all a blaze of instinct and training, and he's planted himself into a defensive posture over Beth before rational thought even has a chance to catch up. The gun in his hand practically fires itself and even at that range, the three guards drop in quick succession.

"You hit?" he chokes out, heart in his throat, as he practically tumbles to his knees beside her.

"It's just my ankle," she says, her face twisted in pain.

He glances down her leg, half-dizzy with relief. It's only a sprain - she's wearing four inch heels, it's a miracle she hasn't twisted her ankle before this point.

The sound of gunfire stopped the other four in their tracks, and now they're rushing back.

"She okay?" Sasha asks.

"I'm fine," Beth grinds out. "You should keep going, we'll be right behind you."

She's right, because more guards will appear at any second and the fewer targets, the better. There's no point in all of them getting recaptured, and he and Beth aren't civilians - they essentially signed up for this. She grabs his upper arm and starts dragging herself upright, and he is a mess of fumbling hands as he tries to help her. She's doing it to show the others that she's fine, that she can walk, that they should go ahead without them.

"Follow the creek down to the backroad and get in the van waiting there," Daryl tells Andrea, since she seems like the likeliest to take control of the remaining group. "You see any guards comin', you  _leave_. Go to the nearest police station and stay there."

Beth is balancing herself on his arm and he can tell that she isn't putting any weight on her left ankle. But her voice is steady as she says, "If that happens, give the police my full name as yours. It'll trip an alert in the CIA's systems and there'll be back-up there in no time."

"It won't come to that," Andrea says firmly. "We'll wait for you at the van." She rounds up the other three and they're off again, running across the lawn toward the tree line.

Beth waits just long enough for them to turn around before sagging against him. He slips an arm around her waist to help support some of her weight. It seems like it's taking a minute or two for more guards to be alerted to their escape, and Daryl intends to make full use of the time.

"C'mon," he says, nodding toward a lone tree with a bench underneath it a couple dozen yards to their left. It's on a wide arc out of their way, but if they position themselves right it'll provide decent visual cover and give them a second to regroup.

Beth doesn't make a single sound of complaint as she tries a tentative step, but she jerks back off her ankle so quick that he knows it's got to be killing her. Plus she's still in those damn high heels, which he can't imagine walking in anyway.

"I'll trade you," he says, offering the gun to her, grip first.

She looks confused as she takes it, but then she squeaks "oh!" when he scoops his other arm under her knees and lifts her, bridal-style.

He had somehow expected her to be feather-light, since she looks like fairydust and sunbeams. Of course she's not - she's flesh and bone, and his bruised ribs groan in protest at the extra weight. But god is she flesh and bone, all warm skin and soft curves, so different from his rough body.

Still, it's honestly a little bit of a relief when he reaches the bench and can put her down. She goes all the way to the ground with her back against the edge of the seat, and he follows to kneel in front of her so that they're both relatively hidden. The bench casts a long shadow from the hotel's lights, but there's still enough moonlight to see.

"Did'ja roll it in or out?" Daryl asks, gingerly reaching for her ankle. It's already starting to swell against the strap of her shoe.

"In," she hisses when he takes the back of her heel in his hand.

He sets her foot back down so that he can pull off his jacket. He knows the formal black shirt he's wearing is by some fancy designer and probably costs a fortune, which makes it particularly satisfying to rip off one sleeve and then then next. Beth is staring wide-eyed at his bare arms, probably thinking that he's some kind of redneck trash for destroying an Armani.

"Gonna have to wrap it," he says defensively.

"Huh?" Beth asks, and it looks like she's waking up from a dream.

"Your ankle," he says. "You mind?"

"Sure, go ahead," she nods, all her fierce resolve flooding back into her face.

He slides the strap out of its buckle so that he can gently slip the shoe off her foot. She winces as he rotates her ankle one way and then the next, trying to diagnose how bad the sprain is. It's definitely going to have to be iced and elevated, but there's not much they can do about that at the moment.

He knots the ends of his sleeves together to make a longer strip of fabric. It's been a couple years since he wrapped a sprain, but it's like muscle memory - lay a foundation across the ball of the foot, and then overlap around the arch and over the ankle. He's careful not to make it too tight, since the fabric doesn't have any stretch in it.

Beth tries an experimental flex of her foot once he ties off the makeshift wrap. "High heels suck," is all she says before her face goes steely and she raises the gun in her hands. "Get down."

He reacts without questioning her, lurching forward at an angle that makes his ribs scream in protest but keeps his weight off her injured ankle. He has just enough time to regret his proximity to the gun before his ears are ringing from the two rounds she fires off over his shoulder.

"Damn," he mutters as he straightens back up, a little dazed.

"I think they're tryin' to circle around and cut us off," Beth says in an undertone. "I can't see any more of them, but they know where we are now."

Daryl scans the area behind her to make sure no one is coming from that direction. They're pretty far up shit creek, but they do have a slight tactical advantage if they can prevent any guards from fully penning them in. Honestly, it's kind of a shock that it's taking so long for a response from the Governor's guards - but then, maybe the disappearance of Merle as head of security is wreaking a little havoc on the troops.

"We should keep movin'," he says.

"I know," she sighs regretfully, and Daryl can't keep the confused grimace off his face at her tone. She pushes the Glock into his chest, reaching for her uninjured foot. She slips her shoe off and cradles it in her hands for a second. "This is my favourite pair," she whispers before wedging the heel into the space between two slats on the bench. With one strong wrench, she breaks the heel clean off to turn the shoe into a flat.

"Let's go," she says once she's fastened the strap around her ankle again.

Part of him wonders what on earth they're doing. Beth isn't able to move very fast, and there's no way he can carry her with his ribs making it so hard to breathe. They have one gun between them, with twelve bullets left if it was fully loaded when Merle handed it over. How the hell are they gonna make it to the treeline, let alone the waiting van, without getting shot in the back?

But Beth is looking at him expectantly, those big blue eyes catching the moonlight and her lips pressed into a firm line of determination. His brother would say she's got moxie - Daryl's not sure what he would call it, but there's no doubt that Beth Greene has every intention of getting back home. Her optimism is infectious, despite his natural tendency to predict the worst.

"What's your rush?" he asks, handing the gun back to her so that he can help her up. "Got a hot date later?"

She cracks a coy grin at him as she takes it, her eyelashes fluttering just so. "Isn't that what we're on right now?"

He can't help but snort a laugh as he gets his feet under him, sitting on his haunches until they're about to move. "You ready?" he asks, extending a hand to her.

She clasps it around the wrist with her free hand and readjusts her grip on the Glock in her other. They pause for a beat like this, long enough for Daryl to peer up over the back of the bench toward the hotel. Even though it still looks all clear, it feels way too easy. Daryl's senses are prickling, but there's nothing for it. Anything is better than waiting around to be picked up by the Governor's men.

He flicks his eyes back to Beth and nods that it's time to move. They go up together, using their clasped hands as leverage.

"Think you can walk-" The words are only half out of his mouth when there is a loud barrage of gunfire from the hotel and they both go back down on instinct. None of the shots landed anywhere near them, but Daryl still frantically checks Beth over as best he can.

"I'm fine," she's saying breathlessly, and it looks like she's trying to check him, too. "Where'd that come from?"

"Come out, come out," a now-familiar voice calls in a sing-song tone. "Wherever you are."

They don't even have to look to know it's the Governor. Of course it was only a matter of time before he showed up. Daryl can make him out through the slats of the bench, that obnoxious swagger emphasized by the assault rifle in his hands. He's flanked by about a dozen guards who all have their weapons raised and aimed at him and Beth. They're about twenty yards away, fanning out to form a line behind him.

"You've put me in an awkward position, Daryl," the Governor calls. "I kept things nice and quiet, didn't want to disturb my guests inside the hotel. But then you had to shoot up five of my men."

"Sorry for the inconvenience," Daryl replies, looking around for any possible advantage. Beth finally looks kinda spooked, which is a little ironic since this is the first time Daryl actually feels like he's got his feet under him. Not that their situation isn't a shitstorm, but at least all that undercover crap is over with.

"Well, y'see, it's a little more than an inconvenience," the Governor says. "I've got my reputation to think of, and lettin' you hurt my people without repercussions isn't something I'm willin' to do."

Beth makes a hand gesture that means  _keep him talking_. At first Daryl is confused, until he catches onto her train of thought - when the others leave without them and give Beth's name to the local police station, it'll only be a matter of minutes until HQ knows something is wrong. Even with all the legalities to sort through, the CIA could deploy a rescue mission within a couple hours. They just have to survive that long, even though that will probably mean being recaptured.

"What do you propose?" Daryl asks to stall for time. He hates talking this much, but there's no way he's gonna make Beth parlay with the Governor.

"Why don't you lay that gun down and come inside? I'm sure we can settle this like civilized adults."

"And if we don't?"

" _Well_ ," the Governor drawls. Daryl can hear the mocking smile in his voice. "You only have a handful of bullets left. The way I see it, this'll work out just fine for me either way."

"Just takes one bullet to shoot you," Beth pipes in, and there's enough venom in her words that Daryl half-wonders if she'll actually do it. But of course it's all for show, because there's no way either one of them could get a shot off without being exposed.

The Governor laughs at her threat, which makes Daryl grind his teeth and Beth's face harden in irritation. "Something tells me you won't do that, sweetheart," he says. "You never did tell me your name."

Daryl isn't completely sure, but it sounds a hell of a lot like Beth mutters " _suck my dick_ " under her breath.

But there's no time for a proper response, because just then they hear the rev of an engine screaming toward them. Beth's eyes pop in shock and Daryl whips around to see a familiar SUV barrelling toward them, Merle at the wheel with one arm out the window to open fire on the Governor and his men. They scatter under the hail of bullets, except for the Governor who lifts that huge assault rifle and just starts shooting from the hip.

The SUV lunges to a stop between them and the the Governor. Everything is insanely loud, but by now Daryl recognizes that Merle somehow got their CIA issued vehicle, which is bulletproof. The door nearest to them pops open and Tyreese appears.

"Come on!" he yells over the noise. By now it sounds like a couple of the Governor's guards have recovered themselves and joined the fray, but they're sheltered by the SUV.

Daryl hauls Beth to her feet and up into his arms in one swift movement, and by god if the adrenaline isn't so high that he doesn't even think about his ribs. He passes her across the bench into Tyreese's waiting arms, figuring it's quicker than making her hobble around.

"You get in the front, I've got her!" Tyreese says, already back to the SUV and helping Beth into it. Someone's hands reach for her from the inside to keep her long skirt clear of her feet so she doesn't trip.

He doesn't even remember getting to the car and flinging himself inside, but Merle's yelling "All clear?" and the door isn't even shut all the way when they're roaring out of there, with a couple parting shots from the second window in the back. Daryl twists around to see, and realizes that Andrea and Michonne had both been shooting, too. Beth is crammed between Andrea and Tyreese in the second row, breathing hard. Sasha and Michonne are all the way in the back.

Next to him, Merle lets out a whoop of victory. They've gained enough distance that the last of the scattered shots aimed at the SUV have petered off, and now they're spewing gravel down the long driveway away from the hotel and toward freedom.

"You hit him?" Daryl demands as his brother picks up speed. "Anybody see if he went down?"

"Son of a bitch got to cover," Andrea grinds out behind him.

There's a couple guards at the front gate, but they blow past them so fast that there's no gunfire exchanged. With shrieking tires, Merle pulls on to the main road and then settles into a more measured speed to blend in with the few other cars that are out so late.

"Where to now, baby brother?" Merle crows through a wide grin. He lives for this adrenaline shit. "You got somewhere for us to lay low for a while?"

"Just head for the 285," Daryl says, figuring the highway is probably their safest bet. He doesn't have the heart to tell him that this high tech CIA vehicle is riddled with sensors that have been sending info back to HQ - like how they just took heavy gunfire. There's probably a flock of discreet black cars already on the way to intercept them. Even though Merle helped them escape, there's no way he's getting out of this without prison time.

_That's the safest place for his dumb ass right now,_  Daryl tells himself, and it's technically true - not that it makes him feel any better. "Why'd you come get us?"

"Heard the second set of shots," Merle said. He's driving with one wrist draped over the wheel like this is a lazy Sunday drive, except there are a couple of round, spidery indents in the side window where the glass stopped bullets. "Your new friends said that lil dollface got her ankle all in a twist, figured y'all could use a helping hand."

"Don't be a dick," Andrea cuts in from the back seat. "It was Tyreese's idea to go back."

"Yeah, yeah," Merle waves his free hand to dismiss her. "But seein' how it was  _me_  who provided the weapons and the escape car, I think I should get credit."

Daryl can hear Beth's soft voice behind him, thanking Tyreese and everybody else in the back. It sounds like Andrea offers to take a look at her ankle.

By now Merle has pulled onto the highway. If Daryl can pretend that no one else is in the SUV, this would feel just like every other time the two of them have left a job. Except it's nothing like that, because his brother let him think that he was dead for four years.

"This is a mighty fine vehicle for a freelancer," Merle says, and the cavalier quality has faded out of his voice. " _Mighty_  fine."

"Maybe I just know how to pick better jobs than you," Daryl mutters. He's eventually gonna have to sort out how he feels about all this, but for now he'd be satisfied with getting back to base.

"Maybe you do, baby brother," Merle replies, checking the rearview mirror as if he expects something to be there.

"How'd you get the key for it?"

"Got it from the valet box," he says. "Devon Jones is a shitty-ass cover name, by the way."

Daryl ignores the jab. There's a million questions running through his mind, and the loudest all start with why. After a minute, he just settles on, "what the hell, man?"

Of course Merle knows he's not asking about tonight. "I had to get outta there. You know I ain't made for the straight n' narrow."

" _You_  started that fight four years ago," Daryl realizes out loud, huffing out an incredulous laugh at the simple genius of it. What better way to escape the CIA than to make them think you're dead?

"I tried lookin' for you a couple times, after," Merle says, and it's probably the closest thing to an apology that he's ever gonna get. "But damn, you're a difficult son of a bitch to find."

Daryl somehow knows that Beth is listening and for a split second, a really really weird part of him wishes that he was back in the hotel room that morning, when her hair was backlit like a halo by the sun coming through the window.  _What the hell?_  he thinks. Nothing makes sense and he hates everything.

He's saved from a response by flashing lights in the rearview mirror, and he hears Beth murmur some kind of thanks like a prayer. Merle tenses, his free hand going to the steering wheel for a better grip in an automatic instinct that Daryl's seen a hundred times before back when they did jobs together.

"It worth me runnin'?" Merle asks. He's not dumb - it's clear that he's finally put the pieces together. It probably only took him so long because joining up with the CIA in an official capacity would never have occurred to him.

"Nah," Daryl says.

His brothers jerks his head toward the backseat where Beth is as he eases off the gas. "I hope the pussy's worth it, little brother."

"Shut up," Daryl says reflexively, damning his own face all to hell for flaring with heat.

"What is this?" Michonne asks about the lights behind them.

"That's the calvary, darlin'," Merle replies with a strained grin that's hard for Daryl to read. For a second he's afraid that he'll try something stupid, but his brother puts the hazards on and pulls off to the side of the road as if this is a normal traffic stop.

And it almost is, except that it's the equivalent of a SWAT team surrounding them instead of a single police officer with a ticket.

"Turn off the car and gimme the key and the gun," Daryl says.

Merle has somehow produced a cigarette and he's lighting it. "I'm gonna think twice before bustin' you out of a hostage situation next time, baby brother."

"The  _key_ ," Daryl growls.

Merle hands them both over. Daryl opens the door slowly, keeping his hands up with the gun loosely held in a neutral position. His chest is immediately lit up by flickering laser tracers, and even though he's been legit with the CIA for three years now, he still gets an awful panicky feeling like he's done something wrong.

Then he hears the click of a car door behind him, and senses more than sees Beth slip out of the car too. He can tell it's her because she's favoring one foot, and he risks looking away from the SWAT team to glance back at her.

"I'm Agent Bethany Greene," she calls out. Her hand is resting lightly on the open door for balance, but the other is up like his. "ID number 26148. My partner and I could use medical and tactical support."

One figure emerges from the rest, lowering his weapon. Daryl is relieved to see it's T-Dog - he'll be fair about Merle, even if he doesn't like it.

"Hey Beth, Daryl. Sorry about the greeting," he says as he approaches. The rest of the team doesn't stand down in the slightest, probably because they can see the others still inside the SUV. "Protocols, y'know?"

"We got five civilians in the vehicle," Daryl says as he relaxes his arms. Beth does the same and takes a little hopping step forward to stand beside him, grabbing his arm for support as she does. It kinda spooks him, but more just because her fingers are cold on his bare skin rather than the contact itself. He puts a hand at the small of her back to steady her almost without thinking about it.

( _Almost_. She's wearing that backless gown, after all.)

"Alright," T-Dog nods. "We'll handle it. We got a medical van a couple cars back - y'all look like you've been through hell."

It's gotta be pushing two in the morning by now, and all of a sudden Daryl can finally acknowledge how exhausted he is. He glances over at Beth, who is already looking at him. She looks even more tired than he feels, with dark rings under her eyes and a bruise fully blossomed on her cheek where the Governor backhanded her.

"C'mon," he says to her as the SWAT team moves toward their vehicle. They probably should have given them a heads-up about exactly  _who_  some of those five civilians are, but T-Dog will process them and send them back to base, which is the safest thing for everybody at the moment. Rick can sort everything out.

The next fifteen minutes or so pass in a blur. They make their way back to the med van, where two medical operatives examine them, clean their cuts, and re-wrap Beth's ankle before tucking shock blankets around them both. Somehow, miraculously, there's hot coffee, and Daryl starts to feel slightly human again with a steaming cup of it in his hands. Then the med team heads over to examine the others, leaving them with strict instructions to be still and rest until it's time to transport back to base.

And then Daryl and Beth are alone, sitting in the back of the van. They can still hear what's going on a couple cars up, and occasionally a civilian vehicle will pass by. It's amazing what people will ignore - a whole row of black SUVs pulled off on the side of the highway, and people just keep driving.

"Sorry about your brother," Beth says, interrupting his thoughts. He's not sure if she means about his brother being back, or his brother lying to him, or that his brother is now going to a CIA detention facility.

He takes a sip of coffee and says, "Merle's an asshole," which is a pretty succinct answer to all three options.

"He kinda is," Beth says, sipping from her own cup. "But I'm glad he was there. We got those four people out because of him."

Daryl doesn't respond, just looks at her from under the fringe of his long hair. She's smaller and sweeter somehow, wrapped up in that orange blanket and cradling a to-go cup in her hands. She isn't looking at him at first, but then her eyes flicker up and he doesn't yank his gaze away in time.

"What?" she asks, something like a smile on her lips.

"Nothin'," he answers quickly.

He can tell she's about to say something more, but just then T-Dog appears at the open back doors of the van. "Y'all are gonna have one hell of a report to file," he says by way of greeting. "Ready to go home?"

_More than anything,_  Daryl thinks, already starting to shift from sitting on the bumper to one of the seats inside the van. He's about to give Beth a hand to do the same, but T-Dog is already helping her up and for a split-second Daryl is pissed at the intrusion. But then Beth is buckling into the seat opposite him, giving him a smile that says we made it, and he can't be pissed anymore.

_This shitty mission is finally over,_  he thinks as a couple other agents pile into the van and it starts moving. He had assumed he would feel only relief at this point, but he's just now realizing that the end of the mission means the end of working with Beth.

_Damn_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmm looks like our boy has a lot of things to sort through in the near future
> 
> one more chapter on this one, friends! the next part is already underway and i am so mcfreakin excited to share it with you omg


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